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Boston  and  New  \obk 


"They  assailed  tiif.  honor  <>i<   his  home."     Pa.^e  30. 


JACK   THE   FISHERMAN 


ELIZABETH    STUART   PHELPS 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


C.  W.  REED 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

®be  Rilicrsibc  press  Cambnbgc 


Copyright,  1887, 

By  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  and 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLir  &  CO. 

All  rights  reserved. 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

"They  assailed  the  honor  of  his  home" Frotitispiece 

Jack's  Cradle Title 

Initial  Letter .     .     i 

"  I  only  cried  at  him  " 4 

"He  obeyed  when  he  felt  like  it" 5 

"  It  was  the  first  time —  he  was  only  twelve  " 8 

"  Upon  his  other  arm  he  wore  a  crucifix  " II 

"  He  looked  into  his  old  felt  hat,  and  wondered  if  he  were  going 

to  cry" 14 

"Why,  Teen!" 20 

"  I  '11  be  an  honest  wife  to  you" 24 

■"  The  crumbling  cottage  " 26 

"  Closets  and  bureaus  seemed  treasure  houses  to  him  "...  27 

"  Teen  was  very  happy,  to  begin  with  " 28 

"  It  grew  comfortless  beside  the  kitchen  fire  " 31 

"  She  held  out  her  arms  as  she  would  to  one  of  her  children  "  .  3} 

"  So  he  crouched,  listening  " 35 

"  You  'd  better  get  up,  Teen  ;  it 's  cryin'  after  you  "'.     .     .     .     .46 

"There's  a  woman  walkin'  on  the  water!  " 48 

"Tell  me  who  it  was,  I  say  !" 52 

"  But  he  had  leaped,  and  gained  on  them  " 54 

"  But  no  one  heard  the  other  words  said  by  Mother  Mary  "  .     .56 
Tail-piece     .     , 59 


$500121 


JACK  THE  FISHERMAN. 


i. 


WAS  a  Fairharbor  boy.  This 
might  be  to  say  any  of  several 
things  ;  but  it  is  at  least  sure 
to  say  one,  —  he  was  a  fisher- 
man, and  the  son  of  a  fisher- 
man. 

When  people  of  another  sort 
than  Jack's  have  told  their 
earthly  story  through,  the  bi- 
ography, the  memorial,  the 
obituary  remains.  Our  poet,  preacher,  healer, 
politician,  and  the  rest  pass  on  to  this  polite 
sequel  which  society  has  ordained  for  human  existence. 
When  Jack  dies,  he  stops.  We  find  the  fisherman 
squeezed  into  some  corner  of  the  accident  column : 
"Washed  overboard,"  or  "Lost  in  the  fog,"  and  that 
is  the  whole  of  it.  He  ends  just  there.  There  is  no 
more  Jack.  No  fellow -members  in  the  Society  for 
Something-or-Nothing  pass  resolutions  to  his  credit  and 
the  consolation  of  his  family.  No  funeral  discourse  is 
preached  over  him  and  privately  printed  at  the  request 
of  the  parishioners.  The  columns  of  the  religious 
weekly  to  which  he  did  not  subscribe  contain  no  obit- 
uary  sketches    signed    by   the   initials    of   friends    not 


2  BORN  AT  SEA. 

thought  to  be  too  afflicted  to  speak  a  good  word  fox 
a  dead  man.  From  the  press  of  the  neighboring  city 
no  thin  memorial  volume  sacred  to  his  virtues  and 
stone-blind  to  his  defects  shall  ever  issue.  Jack  needs 
a  biographer.  Such  the  writer  of  this  sketch  would 
fain  aspire  to  be. 

Jack  was  born  at  sea.  His  father  was  bringing  his 
mother  home  from  a  visit  at  a  half-sister's  in  Nova  Sco- 
tia, for  Jack's  mother  was  one  of  those  homesick,  clan- 
nish people  who  pine  without  their  relations  as  much 
as  some  of  us  pine  with  them  ;  and  even  a  half-sister 
was  worth  more  to  her  in  her  fanciful  and  feeble  condi- 
tion than  a  whole  one  is  apt  to  be  to  bolder  souls. 

She  had  made  her  visit  at  her  half-sister's,  and  they 
had  talked  over  receipts,  and  compared  yeast,  and  cut  out 
baby  things,  and  turned  dresses,  and  dyed  flannel,  and 
gone  to  prayer-meetings  together  ;  and  Jack's  mother 
was  coming  home,  partly  because  Jack's  father  came  for 
her,  and  partly  because  he  happened  to  come  sober, 
which  was  a  great  point,  and  partly  because  the  schooner 
had  to  sail,  which  was  another,  — she  was  coming  home, 
at  all  events,  when  a  gale  struck  them.  It  was  an  ugly 
blow.  The  little  two-masted  vessel  swamped,  in  short, 
at  midnight  of  a  moonlit  night,  off  the  coast,  just  the 
other  side  of  seeing  Cape  Ann  light.  The  crew  were 
picked  up  by  a  three-master,  and  taken  home.  Aboard 
the  three-master,  in  fright  and  chill  and  storm,  the  little 
boy  was  born.  They  always  put  it  that  he  was  born  in 
Fairharbor.  In  fact,  he  was  born  rounding  Eastern 
Point.  "  The  toughest  place  to  be  horned  in,  this  side 
o'  Torment,"  Jack's  father  said.  But  Jack's  mother  said 
nothing  at  all. 

Jack's  father  kept  sober  till  he  got  the  mother  and  the 


AN  ETERNAL   "  TEAR."  3 

child  safely  into  the  little  crumbling,  gray  cottage  in  half 
of  whose  meagre  dimensions  the  family  kept  up  the 
illusion  which  they  called  home.  Then,  for  truth  com- 
pels me,  I  must  state  that  Jack's  father  went  straightway 
out  upon  what,  in  even  less  obscure  circles  than  his,  it  is 
customary  to  call  "  a  tear."  There  seems  to  be  some- 
thing in  the  savage,  incisive  fitness  of  this  word  which 
has  over-ridden  all  mere  distinctions  of  class  or  culture, 
and  must  ultimately  make  it  a  classic  in  the  language. 
"  I  've  stood  it  long  as  I  ken  stand,  and  I  'm  goin'  on  a 
tear,  —  I  'm  agoin'  on  a  netarnalteax"  said  Jack's  father 
to  his  oldest  dory-mate,  a  fellow  he  had  a  feeling  for, 
much  as  you  would  for  an  oar  you  had  handled  a  good 
many  years  ;  or  perhaps  a  sail  that  you  were  used  to, 
and  had  patched  and  watched,  and  knew  the  cracks  in 
it,  and  the  color  of  it,  and  when  it  was  likely  to  give 
way,  and  whereabouts  it  would  hold. 

In  fact,  that  proved  to  be,  in  deed  and  truth,  an  eter- 
nal tear  for  Jack's  father.  Drunk  as  a  fisherman  could 
be,  —and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal,  —he  reshipped  that 
night,  knowing  not  whither  nor  why,  nor  indeed  know- 
ing that  the  deed  was  done ;  and  when  he  came  to  him- 
self he  was  twelve  hours  out,  on  his  way  to  the  Banks  of 
Newfoundland  ;  and  the  young  mother,  with  her  baby 
on  her  arm,  looked  out  of  the  frosty  window  over  the 
foot  of  her  old  bedstead,  and  watched  for  him  to  come, 
and  did  not  like  to  tell  the  neighbors  that  she  was  short 
of  fuel. 

She  was  used  to  waiting  —  women  are  ;  Fairharbor 
women  always  are.  But  she  had  never  waited  so  long 
before.  And  when,  at  the  end  of  her  waiting,  the  old 
dory-mate  came  in  one  night  and  told  her  that  it  hap- 
pened falling  from  the  mast  because  he  was  not  sober 


4  SHE   COULD  NOT  PRA  Y. 

enough  to  be  up  there,  Jack's  mother  said  she  had  al- 
ways expected  it.  But  she  had  not  expected  it,  all  the 
same.  We  never  expect  trouble,  we  only  fear  it.  And 
she  had  put  the  baby  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  got 
upon  her  knees  upon  the  floor,  and  laid  her  face  on  the 
baby,  and  tried  to  say  her  prayers,  —  for  she  was  a  pious 


little  woman,  not  knowing  any  better,  —  but  found  she 
could  not  pray,  she  cried  so.  And  the  old  dory-mate 
told  her  not  to  try,  but  to  cry  as  hard  as  she  could. 
And  she  told  him  he  was  very  kind ;  and  so  she  did. 
For  she  was  fond  of  her  husband  although  he  got 
drunk;  because  he  got  drunk,  one  is  tempted  to  say. 
Her  heart  had  gone  the  way  of  the  hearts  of  drunkards' 
wives  :  she  loved  in  proportion  to  her  misery,  and  gave 
on  equation  with  what  she  lost.  All  the  woman  in  her 
mothered  her  husband  when  she  could  no  longer  wifely 
worship  him.     When  he  died  she  felt  as  if  she  had  lost 


A    RESTLESS  BOY. 


5 


her  eldest  child.  So,  as  I  say,  she  kneeled  with  her  face 
on  the  baby,  and  cried  as  if  she  had  been  the  blessedest 
of  wives.  Afterward  she  thought  of  this  with  self-re 
proach.     She  said  one  day  to  the  old  dory-mate  : 

"  When  my  trouble  came,  I  did  not  pray  to  God.  I  'd 
ought  to  have.     But  I  only  cried  at  Him." 

Jack  had  come  into  the  world  in  a  storm,  and  he  be 
gan  it  storm ily.     He  was  a  big,  roaring  baby,  and  he 
became  a  restless  boy. 
His    mother's    gentle 
and   unmodified   fem- 
ininity   was    helpless 
before  the  problem  of 
this  wholly  masculine 
little  being.     She  said 
Jack    needed   a   man 
to  manage  him.     He 
smoked    at    six  ;     he 
lived    in    the    stables 
and   on   the  wharves 
at    eight  ;     he    came 
when   he    got    ready, 
and    went    when    he 
pleased  ;  he  obeyed  when  he  felt  like  it,  and  when  he 
was  punished,  he  kicked.     Once,  in  an  imaginative  mo- 
ment, he  bit  her. 

She  sent  him  to  pack  mackerel,  for  they  were  put  to 
it  to  keep  soul  and  body  together,  and  he  brought  home 
such  habits  of  speech  as  even  the  Fairharbor  woman 
had  never  heard.  From  her  little  boy,  her  baby,  —  not 
yet  old  enough  to  be  out  of  short  trousers,  and  scarcely 
out  of  little  sacks,  had  he  been  yours,  my  Lady,  at  the 
pretty  age  when  one  still  fastens  lace  collars  round  their 


6  NEEDS  A    MAN  TO  MANAGE  HIM. 

necks,  and  has  them  under  shelter  by  dark,  and  hears 
their  prayers,  and  challenges  the  breath  of  heaven  lest 
it  blow  too  rudely  on  some  delicate  forming  fibre  of  soul 
or  body, — from  her  little  boy,  at  eight  years  old,  the 
mother  first  learned  the  abysses  of  vulgarity  in  a  seaport 
town. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  her  education  in  this  respect 
had  been  defective.  She  had  always  been  one  of  the 
women  in  whose  presence  her  neighbors  did  not  speak 
too  carelessly. 

But  Jack's  mother  had  the  kind  of  eyes  which  do  not 
see  mire,  —  the  meek,  religious,  deep-blue  eye  which 
even  growing  sons  respect  while  they  strike  the  tears 
from  it.  At  his  worst  Jack  regardrd  her  as  a  species  of 
sacred  fact,  much  like  heaven  or  a  hymn.  Sometimes 
on  Sunday  nights  he  stayed  at  home  with  her ;  he  liked 
to  hear  her  sing.  She  sang  Rock  of  Ages  in  her  best 
black  alpaca  with  her  work-worn  hands  crossed  upon 
the  gingham  apron  which  she  put  on  to  save  the  dress. 

But  ah,  she  said,  Jack  needed  a  man  to  manage  him. 
And  one  day  when  she  said  this,  in  spite  of  her  gentle 
unconsciousness,  or  because  of  it,  the  old  dory-mate  to 
whom  she  said  it  said  he  thought  so  too,  and  that  if  she 
had  no  objections  he  would  like  to  be  that  man. 

And  the  Fairharbor  widow,  who  had  never  thought 
of  such  a  thing,  said  she  did  n't  know  as  she  had  ;  for 
nobody  knew,  she  said,  how  near  to  starving  they  had 
come  ;  and  it  was  something  to  have  a  sober  man.  So, 
on  this  reasonable  basis,  Jack  acquired  a  step-father, 
and  his  step-father  sent  him  straightway  to  the  Grand 
Banks. 

He  meant  it  well  enough,  and  perhaps  it  made  no 
difference  in  the  end.     But  Jack  was  a  little  fellow  tO' 


AT   THE    GRAM)   BAXKS.  J 

go  fishing,  —  only  ten.  His  first  voyage  was  hard:  it 
was  a  March  voyage ;  he  got  badly  frostbitten,  and  the 
skipper  was  rough.  He  was  knocked  about  a  good  deal, 
and  had  the  measles  by  himself  in  his  berth  ;  and  the 
men  said  they  did  n't  know  they  had  brought  a  baby  tc 
the  Banks,  for  they  were  very  busy  ;  and  Jack  lay  and 
cried  a  little,  and  thought  about  his  mother,  and  wished 
he  had  n't  kicked  her,  but  forgot  it  when  he  got  well. 
■So  he  swaggered  about  among  the  men,  as  a  boy  does 
when  he  is  the  only  one  in  a  crew,  and  aped  their  talk, 
and  shared  their  grog,  and  did  their  hard  work,  and 
learned  their  songs,  and  came  home  with  the  early  stages 
of  moral  ossification  as  well  set  in  upon  his  little  heart 
as  a  ten-year-old  heart  allows. 

The  next  voyage  did  not  mend  the  matter ;  nor  the 
next.  And  though  the  old  dory-mate  was  an  honest  fel- 
low, he  had  been  more  successful  as  a  dory-mate  than 
he  was  as  a  step-father.  He  and  Jack  did  not  "  get  on." 
Sometimes  Jack's  mother  wondered  if  he  had  needed  a 
man  to  manage  him  ;  but  she  never  said  so.  She  was 
a  good  wife,  and  she  had  fuel  enough,  now  ;  she  only 
kissed  Jack  and  said  she  meant  it  for  the  best,  and  then 
she  went  away  and  sang  Rock  of  Ages  to  the  tune  of 
Martyn,  very  slow,  and  quite  on  the  wrong  key.  It 
seemed  to  make  her  feel  better,  poor  thing.  Jack  some- 
times wondered  why. 

When  he  was  twelve  years  old  he  came  home  from  a 
winter  voyage  one  night,  and  got  his  pay  for  his  share, 
—  boy's  pay,  yet,  for  a  boy's  share  ;  but  bigger  than  it 
used  to  be, — and  did  not  go  home  first,  but  went  rol- 
licking off  with  a  crowd  of  Portuguese.  It  was  a  Sun- 
day night,  and  his  mother  was  expecting  him,  for  she 
knew  the  boat  was  in.     His  step-father  expected  him 


8 


SHE  EXPECTS  HIM. 


too,  —  and  his  money ;  and  Jack  knew  that.  His  mother 
had  been  sick,  but  Jack  did  not  know  that;  she  had  been 
very  sick,  and  had  asked  for  him  a  great  deal.  There 
had  been  a  baby,  —  born  dead  while  its  father  was  off- 
shore after  cod,  —  and  it  had  been  very  cold  weather  ; 
and  something  had  gone  wrong. 

At  midnight  of  that  night  some  one  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  crumbling  cottage.     The  step-father  opened 


it  ;  he  looked  pale  and  agitated.  Some  boys  were  there 
in  a  confused  group  ;  they  bore  what  seemed  to  be  a 
lifeless  body  on  a  drag,  or  bob-sled  ;  it  was  Jack,  dead 
drunk. 

It  was  the  first  time,  —  he  was  only  twelve, — and 
one  of  the  Fairharbor  boys  took  the  pipe  from  his 
mouth  to  explain. 


BUT  SHE  DID  NOT  KNOW.  g 

"  He  was  trapped  by  a  Portygee,  and  they  've  stole 
every  cent  of  him,  'n  kicked  him  out,  'n  lef  him, 
stranded  like  a  monk-fish,  so  me  and  the  other  fellers 
we  borryed  a  sled  and  brung  him  home,  for  we  thought 
his  mother 'd  rather.  He  ain't  dead,  but  he's  just  as 
drunk  as  if  he  was  sixty  !  " 

The  Fairharbor  boy  mentioned  this  circumstance  with 
a  kind  of  abnormal  pride,  as  if  such  superior  maturity 
were  a  point  for  a  comrade  to  make  note  of.  But 
Jack's  step-father  went  out  softly,  and  shut  the  door, 
and  said  : 

"  Look  here,  boys,  —  help  me  in  with  him,  will  you  ? 
Not  that  way.  His  mother  's  in  there.  She  died  an 
hour  ago." 


II. 


And  so  the  curse  of  his  heredity  came  upon  him. 
She  never  knew,  thank  Heaven.  Her  knowledge  would 
have  been  a  kind  of  terrible  fore-omniscience,  if  she 
had.  She  would  have  had  no  hope  of  him  from  that 
hour.  Her  experience  would  have  left  her  no  illu- 
sions. The  drunkard's  wife  would  have  educated  the 
drunkard's  mother  too  "  liberally  "  for  that.  She  would 
have  taken  in  the  whole  scope  and  detail  of  the  future 
in  one  midnight  moment's  breadth,  as  a  problem  in  the 
higher  mathematics  may  rest  upon  the  width  of  a  geo- 
metrical point.  But  she  did  not  know.  We  say —  I  mean, 
it  is  our  fashion  of  saying  —  that  she  did  not  know. 
God  was  merciful.  She  had  asked  for  Jack,  it  seemed, 
over  and  over,  but  did  not  complain  of  him  for  not  com- 
ing ;  she  never  complained  of  Jack.     She  said  the  poor 


IO  THEY  COULD  NOT   WAKE  HER. 

boy  must  have  stayed  somewhere  to  have  a  pleasant 
time  ;  and  she  said  they  were  to  give  her  love  to  him,  if 
he  came  in  while  she  was  asleep.  And  then  she  asked 
her  husband  to  sing  Rock  of  Ages  for  her,  because 
she  did  not  feel  very  strong.  He  could  n't  sing,  —  more 
than  a  halibut,  poor  fellow  ;  but  he  did  not  like  to  dis- 
appoint her,  for  he  thought  she  looked  what  he  called 
"  miser'ble  "  ;  so  he  sat  down  by  the  bed  and  raised  his 
hoarse,  weather-beaten  voice  to  the  tune  of  Marty n,  as 
best  he  could,  and  mixed  up  two  verses  inextricably  wi.h 
a  line  from  "  Billy  's  on  the  bright  blue  sea,"  which  he 
added  because  he  saw  he. must  have  something  to  fill 
out,  and  it  was  all  he  could  think  of,  — but  she  thanked 
him  very  gently,  and  said  he  sang  quite  well  ;  and  said 
once  more  that  he  was  to  give  her  love  to  Jack ;  and 
went  to  sleep  afterward  ;  and  by  and  by,  they  could 
not  wake  her  to  see  her  boy  of  twelve  brought  to  her 
drunk. 

The  curse  of  his  heredity  was  upon  him.  We  may 
blame,  we  may  loathe,  we  may  wonder,  we  may  despair ; 
but  we  must  not  forget.  There  were  enough  to  blame 
without  remembering.  Jack,  like  all  drunkards,  soon 
learned  this.  In  fact,  he  did  not  remember  it  very  well 
himself,  — not  having  been  acquainted  with  his  father  ; 
and  never  sentimentalized  over  himself  nor  whined  for 
his  bad  luck,  —  but  owned  up  to  his  sins,  with  the 
bluntness  of  an  honest,  bad  fellow.  He  was  rather  an 
honest  fellow,  in  spite  of  it  all.  He  never  lied  when  he 
was  sober. 

If  the  curse  of  his  ancestry  had  come  upon  him.  its 
compensatory  temperament  came  too.  Jack  had  the 
merry  heart  of  the  easy  drinker. 

Born  with    his    father's    alcoholized   brain-cells,  poor 


THE    TATTOOED   CRUCIFIX. 


II 


baby,  endowed  with  the  narcotined  conscience  which 
this  species  of  parentage  bequeaths,  he  fell  heir  to  the 
kind  of  attractiveness  that  goes  with  the  legacy. 

He  was  a  happy-go-lucky  fellow.  Life  sat  airily  on 
him.  He  had  his  mother's  handsome  eyes  dashed  with 
his  father's  fun  (for  she  could  n't  take  a  joke,  to  save 
her)  ;  he  told  a  good  story  ;  he  did  a  kind  deed  ;  he  was 
generous  with  his  money,  when  he  had  any,  and  never 
in  the  least  disturbed  when  he  had  n't.  He  was  popular 
to  the  dangerous  extent  that  makes  one's  vices  seem 
a  kind  of  social  introduction,  and  not  in  Jack's  circle 
alone,  be  it  said. 
Every  crew  wanted 
him.  Drunk  or  so- 
ber, as  a  shipmate 
he  was  at  par.  It 
was  usually  easy  for 
him  to  borrow.  The 
fellows  made  up  his 
fines  for  him,  there 
was  always  some- 
body to  go  bail  for 
him  when  he  got 
before  the  police 
court.  Arrested  per- 
haps a  half  dozen 
times  a  year,  in  his 

maddest  years,  he  never  was  sent  to  the  House  in  his 
life.  There  were  always  people  enough  who  thought  it 
a  pity  to  let  such  a  good  fellow  go  to  prison.  He  had 
—  I  was  going  to  say  as  a  matter  of  course  he  had  — 
curly  hair.  One  should  not  omit  to  notice  that  he  was 
splendidly  tattooed.     He  was  proud,  as  seamen  are,  of 


12  ALWAYS  REFORMING. 

his  brawny  arms,  dashed  from  wrist  to  shoulder  with 
the  decorative  ingenuity  of  his  class.  Jack  had  aesthetic 
views  of  his  own,  indeed,  about  his  personal  allowance 
of  indigo.  He  had  objected  to  the  customary  medley 
of  anchors,  stars,  and  crescents,  and  exhibited  a  certain 
reserve  of  taste,  which  was  rather  interesting.  On  his 
left  arm  he  bore  a  very  crooked  lighthouse  rising  from 
a  heavy  sea ;  he  was,  in  fact,  quite  flooded  along  the 
bicipital  muscle  with  waves  and  billows,  but  nothing 
else  interfered  with  the  massive  proportions  of  the  ef- 
fect. This  was  considered  a  masterly  design,  and  Jack 
was  often  called  upon  to  push  up  his  sleeve  and  explain 
how  he  came  by  the  inspiration. 

Upon  the  other  arm  he  wore  a  crucifix,  ten  inches 
long  ;  this  was  touched  with  blood-red  ink ;  the  dead 
Christ  hung  upon  it,  lean  and  pitiful.  Jack  said  he  took 
the  crucifix  against  his  drowning.  It  was  an  uncom- 
monly large  and  ornate  crucifix. 

Jack  was  a  steady  drinker  at  nineteen.  At  twenty- 
five  he  was  what  either  an  inexperienced  or  a  deeply 
experienced  temperance  missionary  would  have  called 
incurable.  The  intermediate  grades  would  have  confi- 
dently expected  to  save  him. 

Of  course  he  reformed.  He  would  not  have  been  in- 
teresting if  he  had  not.  The  unmitigated  sot  has  few 
attractions  even  for  seafaring  society.  It  is  the  foil  and 
flash,  the  by-play  and  side-light  of  character,  that  "  lead 
us  on."  Jack  was  always  reforming.  After  that  night 
when  he  was  brought  home  on  the  bob-sled,  the  little 
boy  was  as  steady  and  as  miserable  as  he  knew  how  to 
be  for  a  long  time  ;  he  drew  the  unfortunate  inference 
that  the  one  involved  the  other.  By  the  time  his 
mother's   grave  was  green  with  the  scanty  Fairharbor 


THEY  TOUCHED  HIM  GINGERLY.  13 

church-yard  grass,  —  for  even  the  sea-wind  seems  to 
have  a  grudge  against  the  very  dead  for  choosing  dry 
graves  in  Fairharbor,  and  scants  them  in  their  natural 
covering,  —  by  that  time  rank  weeds  had  overgrown  the 
sorrow  of  the  homeless  boy.  He  and  his  step-father 
"got  on  "  less  than  ever  now,  as  was  to  be  expected  ; 
and  when  one  day  Jack  announced  with  characteristic 
candor  that  he  was  going  to  get  drunk,  if  he  went  to 
Torment  for  it,  the  two  parted  company  ;  and  the  crum- 
bling cottage  knew  Jack  no  more.  By  and  by,  when  his 
step-father  was  drowned  at  Georges',  Jack  borrowed  the 
money  for  some  black  gloves  and  a  hat-band.  He  had 
the  reputation  of  being  a  polite  fellow ;  the  fishermen 
spelled  it  t-o-n-y.  Truth  to  tell,  the  old  dory-mate  had 
wondered  sometimes  on  Sunday  afternoons  if  he  had 
been  the  man  to  manage  Jack ;  and  felt  that  the  main 
object  of  his  second  marriage  had  been  defeated. 

Jack,  as  I  say,  was  always  reforming.  Every  temper- 
ance society  in  the  city  had  a  hand  at  him.  They  were 
of  the  old-fashioned,  easy  type  which  took  their  respon- 
sibilities comfortably.  They  held  him  out  on  a  pair  of 
moral  tongs,  and  tried  to  toast  his  misdemeanors  out  of 
him,  before  a  quick  fire  of  pledges  and  badges  ;  and  when 
he  tumbled  out  of  the  tongs,  and  asked  the  president 
and  treasurer  why  they  did  n't  bow  to  him  in  the  street 
when  he  was  drunk,  or  why,  if  he  was  good  enough  for 
them  in  the  lodge-room,  he  was  n't  good  enough  to  shake 
hands  with  before  folks  on  the  post-office  steps,  or  pro- 
pounded any  of  those  ingenious  posers  with  which  his 
kind  are  in  the  habit  of  disturbing  the  benevolent  spirit, 
they  snapped  the  tongs  to,  and  turned  him  over  to  the 
churches. 

These  touched  him  gingerly.     They  invited  him  into 


H 


NO    WAITS  IN   THIS  PLAY. 


the  free  pews,  —  a  dismal  little  row  in  the  gallery, — 
sent  him  a  tract  or  two,  and  asked  him  a  few  well-meant 
and  very  confusing  religious  questions,  to  which  Jack's 
replies  were  far  from  satisfactory.  One  ardent  person, 
a  recent  convert,  coaxed  him  into  a  weekly  prayer-meet- 
ing. It  was  a  very  good,  honest,  uninteresting  prayer- 
meeting,  and  there  were  people  sitting  there  beside  him 


with  clean  lives  and  clear  faces  whose  motives  Jack  was 
not  worthy  to  understand,  and  he  knew  enough  to  know 
it.  But  it  happened  to  be  a  foreign  mission  prayer-meet- 
ing, devoted  to  the  Burmese  field ;  which  was,  therefore, 
be  it  said,  not  so  much  an  argument  against  foreign  mis- 
sions, as  a  deficient  means  of  grace  to  the  fisherman. 
Jack  was  terribly  bored.  He  ran  his  hands  through  his 
curls,  and   felt   for   his  tobacco,  and  whispered  to  tie 


"I  AIN'T  RELIGIOUS.     I  DRINK."  15 

young  convert  to  know  if  there  were  n't  any  waits  in  the 
play  so  a  man  could  get  out  without  hurting  anybody's 
feelings.  But  just  then  the  young  convert  struck  up  a 
hymn,  and  Jack  stayed. 

He  liked  the  singing.  His  restless,  handsome  face 
took  on  a  change  such  as  a  windy  day  takes  on  toward 
dusk,  when  the  breeze  dies  clown.  When  he  found 
they  were  singing  Rock  of  Ages,  he  tried  to  sing  it  too, 
—  for  he  was  a  famous  tenor  on  deck.  But  when  he  had 
sung  a  line  or  two,  —  flash  !  down  in  one  of  the  empty 
pews  in  front,  he  saw  a  thin  old  lady  with  blue  eyes,  sit- 
ting in  a  black  alpaca  dress  with  her  hands  clasped  on 
her  gingham  apron. 

"That's  my  mother.  Have  I  got  the  jim-jams?" 
asked  this  unaccustomed  worshiper  of  himself.  But 
then  he  remembered  that  he  was  sober.  He  could  sins: 
no  longer  after  this,  but  bowed  his  head  and  looked  into 
his  old  felt  hat,  and  wondered  if  he  were  going  to  cry, 
or  get  religion.  In  point  of  fact,  he  did  neither  of  these 
things,  because  a  very  old  church-member  arose  just 
then,  and  said  he  saw  a  poor  castaway  in  our  midst  to- 
night, and  he  besought  the  prayers  of  the  meeting  for 
his  soul.  Jack  stopped  crying.  He  looked  hard  at  the 
old  church-member.  He  knew  him  ;  had  always  known 
him.  The  fisherman  waited  till  that  prayer  was 
through,  —  it  was  rather  a  long  prayer,  —  and  then  he 
too  sprang  to  his  feet.  He  looked  all  around  the  deco- 
rous place  ;  his  face  was  white  with  the  swift  passion  of 
the  drinking  man. 

"  I  never  spoke  in  meetin'  in  my  life,"  said  Jack  in  an 
unsteady  voice.  "  I  ain't  religious.  I  drink.  But  I  'm 
sober  to-night,  and  I  've  got  something  to  say  to  you.  I 
heard  what  that  man  said.     I  know  him.     He  's  old  Jim 


1 6  HE  LIKED    THE  GIRL. 

Crownoby.  I  've  always  knowed  Jim  Crownoby.  He 
owns  a  sight  of  property  in  this  town.  He 's  a  rich 
man.  He  owns  that  block  on  Black  street.  You  know 
he  does.  You  can't  deny  it.  Nor  he  can't  neither. 
All  I  want  to  say  is,  I  've  got  drunk  in  one  of  them 
places  of  his,  time  and  again  ;  and  if  there  ain't  any- 
body but  him  to  pray  for  my  soul,  I  'd  rather  go  to  the 
devil." 

Jack  stopped  short,  jammed  on  his  hat,  and  left  the 
meeting.  In  the  shocked  rustle  that  followed,  some  one 
had  the  tact  to  start  "  Rescue  the  perishing,"  as  the 
fisherman  strode  down  the  broad  aisle.  He  did  not  go 
again.  The  poor  young  convert  followed  him  up  for  a 
week  or  two,  and  gave  him  an  expensive  Testament, 
bought  out  of  an  almost  invisible  personal  income,  in 
vain. 

"I've  no  objections  to  you,"  said  Jack  candidly; 
"  I  'm  much  obliged  to  ye  for  yer  politeness,  sir.  But 
them  churches  that  sub-leases  to  a  rum-seller,  I  don't 
think  they  onderstand  a  drinkin'  man.  Hey  ?  Well, 
ain't  he  their  biggest  rooster,  now  ?  Don't  he  do  the 
heft  of  the  payin',  and  the  tallest  of  their  crowin', 
consequent  ?  Thought  so.  Better  leave  me  go,  sir. 
I  ain't  a  pious  man  ;  I  'm  a  fisherman." 

"  Fishes,"  said  Jack,  "  is  no  fools." 

He  gave  voice  to  this  remark  one  day  in  Boston, 
when  he  was  twenty-five  years  old.  He  was  trying  to 
entertain  a  Boston  girl ;  she  was  not  familiar  with  Fair- 
harbor  or  with  the  scenery  of  his  calling  ;  he  wanted  to 
interest  her  ;  he  liked  the  girl.  He  had  liked  a  good 
many  girls,  it  need  not  be  said  ;  but  this  one  had  laid 
upon  the  fisherman  —  she  knew  not  how,  he  knew  not 


SHE    WAS  A   PRETTY  GIRL.  17 

why,  and  what  man  or  woman  of  us  could  have  told 
him  ? — the  power  that  comes  not  of  reason,  or  of  time, 
or  of  trying,  or  of  wisdom,  or  of  Tightness,  but  of  the 
mystery  to  which,  when  we  are  not  speaking  of  Jack, 
we  give  the  name  of  love.  It  seems  a  sacrilege,  admit, 
to  write  it  here,  and  of  these  two.  But  there,  again,  it 
would  be  easy  to  be  wrong.  The  study  of  the  relativity 
of  human  feeling  is  a  delicate  science;  it  calls  for  a  fine 
moral  equipment.  If  this  were  the  high-water  mark  of 
nature  for  Jack  —  and  who  shall  say  ?  —  the  tide  shall 
have  its  sacred  clue,  even  clown  among  those  weeds  and 
in  that  mud.  He  liked  that  girl,  among  them  all,  and 
her  he  thought  of  gently.  He  had  known  her  a  long 
time  ;  as  much  as  three  months.  When  the  vessel  came 
into  Boston  to  sell  halibut,  he  had  a  few  days  there, 
drifting  about  as  seamen  do,  homeless  and  reckless  ; 
clashing  out  the  wages  just  paid  off,  in  ways  that  some- 
times he  remembered  and  sometimes  he  forgot,  and  that 
usually  left  him  without  a  dollar  toward  his  next  fine 
when  he  should  be  welcomed  by  the  police  court  of  his 
native  city  on  returning  home. 

Jack  thought,  I  say,  gravely  of  this  girl.  He  never 
once  took  her  name  in  vain  among  the  fellows ;  and  she 
had  not  been  a  very  good  girl  either.  But  Jack  re- 
flected that  he  was  not  very  good  himself,  if  you  came 
to  that.  His  downright,  honest  nature  stood  him  in 
stead  in  this  moral  distinction ;  there  was  always  a 
broad  streak  of  generosity  in  him  at  his  worst ;  it  goes 
with  the  temperament,  we  say,  and  perhaps  we  say  it 
too  often  to  give  him  half  the  credit  of  it. 

She  was  a  pretty  girl,  and  she  was  very  young.  She 
had  told  Jack  her  story,  as  they  strolled  about  the 
bright  Boston  streets  on  comfortable  winter  evenings ; 


1 8  JACK   WAS   SOBER. 

when  he  took  her  to  the  variety  show,  or  to  the  oyster- 
shop,  and  they  talked  together.  Jack  pitied  her.  Per- 
haps she  deserved  it  ;  it  was  a  sad  little  story  —  and  she 
was  so  very  young  !  She  had  a  gentle  way,  with  Jack ; 
for  some  reason,  God  knows  why,  she  had  trusted  him 
from  the  first,  and  he  had  never  once  been  known  to  dis- 
turb her  trust.     That  was  the  pleasant  part  of  it. 

On  this  evening  that  we  speak  of,  Jack  was  sober. 
He  was  often  sober  when  he  had  an  evening  to  spend 
with  the  Boston  girl  ;  not  always — no  ;  truth  must  be 
told.  She  looked  as  pretty  as  was  in  her  that  night  ; 
she  had  black  eyes  and  a  kind  of  yellow  hair  that  Jack 
had  never  seen  crinkled  low  on  the  forehead  above  black 
eyes  before ;  he  thought  her  as  fine  to  look  at  as  any 
actress  he  ever  saw  ;  for  the  stage  was  Jack's  standard 
of  the  magnificent,  as  it  is  to  so  many  of  his  sort.  The 
girl's  name  was  Teen.  Probably  she  had  been  called 
Christine  once,  in  her  country  home  ;  she  even  told  Jack 
she  had  been  baptized. 

"I  wasn't,  myself,"  said  Jack;  "I  roared  so,  they 
darse  n't  do  it.  My  mother  got  me  to  church,  for  she 
was  a  pious  woman,  and  I  pummeled  the  parson  in  the 
face  with  both  fists,  and  she  said  she  come  away,  for  she 
was  ashamed  of  me.  She  always  said  that  christenin' 
wasn't  never  legal.  It  disappointed  her,  too.  I  was  an 
awful  baby." 

"I  should  think  likely,"  said  Teen  with  candor.  "  Do 
you  set  much  by  your  mother  ?  " 

"  She  's  dead,"  said  Jack  in  a  subdued  voice.  Teen 
looked  at  him  ;  she  had  never  heard  him  speak  like 
that. 

"  I  'most  wished  mine  was,"  said  the  girl  ;  "she  'd  'a' 
ben  better  off  —  alonsc  of  me." 


"  WHY,   TE£Ns"  19 

"  That 's  so,"  said  Jack. 

The  two  took  a  turn  in  silence  up  and  down  the 
brightly  lighted  street  ;  their  thoughts  looked  out 
strangely  from  their  marred  young  faces  ;  they  felt  as 
if  they  were  in  a  foreign  country.  Jack  had  meant  to 
ask  her  to  take  a  drink,  but  he  gave  it  up  ;  he  could  n't, 
somehow. 

"Was  you  always  a  fisherman?"  asked  Teen,  feeling, 
with  a  woman's  tact,  that  somebody  must  change  the 
current  of  the  subject. 

"  I  was  a  fisherman  three  generations  back,"  Jack  an- 
swered her  ;  "  borned  a  fisherman,  you  bet !  I  could  n't 
'a'  ben  nothin'  else  if  I  'd  drownded  for  it.  It 's  a  smart 
business.  You  hev  to  keep  your  wits  about  you.  Fishes 
is  no  fools." 

"Ain't  they?"  asked  the  girl  listlessly.  She  was 
conscious  of  failing  in  conversational  brilliancy  ;  but  the 
truth  was,  she  could  n't  get  over  what  they  had  been 
saying  :  it  was  always  unfortunate  when  she  remembered 
her  mother.  Jack  began  to  talk  to  her  about  his  busi- 
ness again,  but  Teen  did  not  reply  ;  and  when  he  looked 
down  at  her  to  see  what  ailed  her,  there  were  real  tears 
rolling  over  her  pretty  cheeks. 

"  Why,  Teen  !  "  said  Jack. 

"  Leave  go  of  me,  Jack,"  said  Teen,  "  and  let  me  get 
off  ;  I  ain't  good  company  to-night.  I  've  got  the  dumps. 
I  can't  entertain  ye,  Jack.  And,  Jack  —don't  let 's  talk 
about  mothers  next  time,  will  we  ?  It  spoils  the  evenin'. 
Leave  go  of  me,  and  I  '11  go  home  by  my  own  self.  I  'd 
rather." 

"  I  won't  leave  go  of  you  !  "  cried  Jack  with  a  sudden 
blazing  purpose  lighting  up  all  the  corners  of  his  soul. 
It   was  a  white  light,   not  unholy  ;  it   seemed  to  shine 


20 


"MARRY  ME?" 


through  and  through  him  with  a  soft  glow  like  a  candle 
on  an  altar.  "  I  '11  never  leave  go  of  you,  Teen,  if  you'H 
say  so.     I  'd  rather  marry  you." 


"  Marry  met"  said  Teen. 

"  Yes,  marry  you.      I  'd  a  sight  rather.     There,  now  1 
It 's  out  with  it.     What  do  you  say  to  that,  Teen  ?  " 


HE  LOOKED    VERY  KIND.  21 

With  one  slow  finger-tip  Teen  wiped  away  the  tears 
that  fell  for  her  mother.  A  ring  on  her  finger  glistened 
in  the  light  as  she  did  this.  She  saw  the  sparkle,  tore 
off  the  ring  and  dashed  it  away  ;  it  fell  into  the  mud, 
and  was  trodden  out  of  sight  instantly.  Jack  sprang 
gallantly  to  pick  it  up. 

"  Don't  you  touch  it  !  "  cried  the  girl.  She  put  her 
bared  hand  back  upon  his  arm.  The  ring  had  left  a  little 
mark  upon  her  finger  ;  she  glanced  at  this,  and  looked 
up  into  Jack's  handsome  face  ;  he  looked  very  kind. 

"  Jack,  clear,"  said  Teen  softly,  "  I  ain't  fit  to  marry 
ye." 

"  You  're  fitter  'n  I  be,"  answered  Jack  manfully. 
Teen  sighed  ;  she  did  not  speak  at  once  ;  other  tears 
came  now,  but  these  were  tears  for  herself  and  for  Jack. 
Jack  felt  this,  after  his  fashion  ;  they  gave  him  singular 
confusion  of  mind. 

"  I  would  n't  cry  about  it,  Teen.  You  need  n't  have 
me  if  you  don't  want  to." 

"  But  I  do  want  to,  Jack." 

"  Honest  ?  " 

"  Honest  it  is,  Jack." 

"  Will  ye  make  a  good  wife,  Teen  ?  "  asked  Jack,  after 
some  unprecedented  thought. 

"  I  '11  try,  Jack." 

"  You  '11  never  go  back  on  me,  nohow  ?  " 

"  I  ain't  that  sort  !  "  cried  the  girl,  drawing  herself  up 
a  little.  A  new  dignity  sat  upon  her  with  a  certain  grace 
which  was  beautiful  to  see. 

"  Will  you  swear  it,  Teen  ?  " 

"  If  you  'd  rather,  Jack." 

"  What  '11  you  swear  by,  now  ?  "  asked  Jack.  "  You 
must  swear  by  all  you  hold  holy." 


22  MOTHER  MARY. 

"  What  do  I  hold  holy  ? "  mused  Teen. 

"Will  you  swear,"  continued  Jack  seriously,  "will  you 
swear  to  me  by  the  Rock  of  Ages  ? " 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  asked  the  girl. 

"  It  's  a  hymn-tune.  I  want  you  to  swear  me  by  the 
Rock  of  Ages  that  you  '11  be  that  you  say  you  will,  to 
me.     Will  you  do  it,  Teen  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Teen,  "  I  '11  do  it.  Where  shall  we 
come  across  one  ?  " 

"  I  guess  I  can  find  it,"  Jack  replied.  "  I  can  find 
'most  anything  I  set  out  to." 

So  they  started  out  at  random,  in  their  reckless 
fashion,  in  the  great  city,  to  find  the  Rock  of  Ages  for 
the  asking. 

Jack  led  his  companion  hither  and  yon,  peering  into 
churches  and  vestries  and  missions,  and  wherever  he 
saw  signs  of  sacred  things.  Singing  they  heard  abun- 
dantly in  the  gay  town  ;  songs  merry,  mad,  and  sad  ; 
but  not  the  song  for  a  girl  to  swear  by,  that  she  would 
be  true  wife  to  a  man  who  trusted  her. 

Wandering  thus,  on  the  strange  errand  whose  pathos 
was  so  far  above  their  own  dream  or  knowledge,  they 
chanced  at  last  upon  the  place  and  the  little  group  of 
people  known  in  that  part  of  Boston  as  Mother  Mary's 
meeting. 

The  girl  said  she  had  been  there  once,  but  that  Mother 
Mary  was  too  good  for  her ;  she  was  one  of  the  real 
kind.  Everybody  knew  Mother  Mary  and  her  hus- 
band ;  he  was  a  parson.  They  were  poor  folks  them- 
selves, Teen  said,  and  understood  poor  folks,  and  did  for 
them  all  the  year  round,  not  clearing  out,  like  rich  ones, 
when  it  came  hot  weather,  but  stood  by  'em,  Teen  said. 
They  kept  the   little  room  open,  and   if   you   wanted  a 


ROCK  OF  AGES.  23 

prayer  you  went  in  and  got  it,  just  as  you  'd  call  for  a 
drink  or  a  supper  ;  it  was  always  on  hand  for  you,  and 
a  kind  word  sure  to  come  with  it,  and  you  always  knew 
where  to  go  for  'em  ;  and  Mother  Mary  treated  you  like 
folks.  She  liked  her,  Teen  said.  If  she  'd  been  a  dif- 
ferent girl,  she  'd  have  gone  there  of  a  cold  night  all 
winter.     But  Teen  said  she  felt  ashamed. 

"  I  guess  she  '11  have  what  I  'm  after,"  said  Jack.  •"  She 
sounds  like  she  would.     Let  's  go  in  and  see." 

So  they  went  into  the  quiet  place  among  the  praying 
people,  and  stood  staring,  for  they  felt  embarrassed. 
Mother  Mary  looked  very  white  and  peaceful  ;  she  was 
a  tall,  fair  woman  ;  she  wore  a  black  dress  with  white 
about  the  bosom  ;  it  was  a  plain,  old  dress,  much  mend- 
ed. Mother  Mary  did  not  look  rich,  as  Teen  had  said. 
The  room  was  filled  with  poor  creatures  gathered  about 
her  like  her  children,  while  she  talked  with  them  and 
taught  them  as  she  could.  She  crossed  the  room  im- 
mediately to  where  the  young  man  stood,  with  the  girl 
beside  him. 

"We've  come,"  said  Jack,  "to  find  the  Rock  of 
Ages."  He  drew  Teen's  hand  through  his  arm,  and 
held  it  for  a  moment  ;  then,  moved  by  some  fine  instinct 
mysterious  to  himself,  he  lifted  and  laid  it  in  Mother 
Mary's  own. 

"Explain  it  to  her,  ma'am,"  he  said  ;  "'tell  her,  won't 
you  ?  I  'm  going  to  marry  her,  if  she  '11  have  me.  I 
want  her  to  swear  by  somethin'  holy  she  '11  be  a  true 
wife  to  me.  She  had  n't  anything  particularly  holy  her- 
self, and  the  holiest  thing  I  know  of  is  the  Rock  of 
Ages.  I  've  heard  my  mother  sing  it.  She 's  dead. 
We  've  been  huntin'  Boston  over  to-night  after  the  Rock 
of  Ages." 


"I'll  be  an  honest  wifs  to  you."     Page  25. 


"  THOU  MUST  SA  VE.n  25 

Mother  Mary  was  used  to  the  pathos  of  her  sober 
work,  but  the  tears  sprang  now  to  her  large  and  gentle 
eyes.  She  did  not  speak  to  Jack,  —  could  not  possibly, 
just  then  ;  but,  delaying  only  for  the  moment  till  she 
could  command  herself,  she  flung  her  rich,  maternal 
voice  out  upon  the  words  of  the.  old  hymn.  Her  hus- 
band joined  her,  and  all  the  people  present  swelled  the 
chorus. 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me  ! 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee  ; 

Be  of  sin  the  double  cure, 

Cleanse  me  from  its  guilt  and  power." 

They  sang  it  all  through,  —  the  three  verses  that  every- 
body knows,  —  and  Jack  and  Teen  stood  listening. 
Jack  tried  to  sing  himself  ;  but  Teen  hid  her  face,  and 
cried  upon  his  arm. 

"  Thou  must  save,"  sang  the  praying  people  ;  "Thou 
must  save,  and  thou  alone  !  " 

The  strain  died  solemnly  ;  the  room  was  quiet ;  the 
minister  yonder  began  to  pray,  and  all  the  people  bowed 
their  heads.  But  Mother  Mary  stood  quite  still,  with  the 
girl's  hand  trembling  in  her  own. 

"  Swear  it,  Teen  !  "  Jack  bent  clown  his  curly  head 
and  whispered  ;  he  would  not  shame  his  promised  wife 
before  these  people.  "  Swear  by  that,  you  '11  be  true 
wife  to  me  !  " 

"I  swear  it,  Jack,"  sobbed  Teen.  "If  that's  the 
Rock  of  Ages,  I  swear  by  it,  though  I  was  to  die  for  it, 
I'll  be  an  honest  wife  to  you." 

"  Come  back  when  you  've  got  your  license,"  said 
Mother  Mary,  smiling  through  her  tears,  "  and  my  hus- 
band will  marry  you  if  you  want  him  to." 


26 


WILL    YOU  BE  KIND    TO  ME? 


"  We  '11  come  to-morrow,"  Jack  answered  gravely. 

"  Jack,"  said  Teen  in  her  pretty  way,  —  for  she  had  a 
very  pretty  way,  —  "if  I'man  honest  wife  to  you,  will 
you  be  kind  to  me  ? "  She  did  not  ask  him  to  swear 
it  by  the  Rock  of  Ages.  She  took  his  word  for  it,  poor 
thins: !     Women  do. 


III. 


Mother  Mary's  husband  married  them  next  day  at 
the  Mission  meeting  ;  and  Mother  Mary  sat  down  at  the 
melodeon  in  the  corner  of  the  pleasant  place,  and  played 
and  sang  Toplady's  great  hymn  for  them,  as  Jack  had 
asked  her.  It  was  his  wedding  march.  He  was  very 
sober  and  gentle, — almost  like  a  better  man.  Teen 
thought  him  the  handsomest  man  she  had  ever  seen. 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Teen,"  he  nodded  to  her,  as  they  walked 
away,  "  one  thing  I  forgot  to  tell  you,  —  I'm  reformed." 

"  Are  you,  Jack  ?  " 

"  If  I  ever  drink  a  drop  again,  so  help  me  "  —  But 
he  stopped. 

"  So  help  you,  Rock  of  Ages  ? "  asked  the  new-made 
wife.  But  Jack  winced  ;  he  was  honest  enough  to  hesi- 
tate at  this. 


HAPPY  AND   SOBER. 


^7 


"  I  don't  know  's  I  'd  darst  —  that"  he  added  ruefully. 
"  But  I  'm  reformed.  I  have  lost  all  hanker  for  liquor. 
I  shall  never  drink  again.     You  '11  see,  Teen." 

Teen  did  see,  as  was  to  be  expected.  She  saw  a 
great  deal,  poor  thing  !  Jack  did  not  drink  —  for  a  long 
time;  it  was  nearly  five  months,  for  they  kept  close 
count.  He  took  her  to  Fairharbor,  and  rented  the  old 
half  of  the  crumbling  cottage  where  his  mother  used  to 
sit  and  watch  for  him  on  long,  late  evenings.  The 
young  wife  did  the  watching  now.  They  planted  some 
cinnamon  rose-bushes 
by  the  doorsteps  of  —  \ 
the  cottage,  and  fos- 
tered them  affection- 
ately. Jack  was  as 
happy  and  sober  as 
possible,  to  begin 
with.  He  picked  the 
cinnamon  roses  and 
brought  them  in  for 
his  wife  to  wear.  He 
was  proud  to  have  a 
home  of  his  own  ;  he 
had  not  expected  to  ; 
in  fact,  he  had  never 
had  one  since  that 
night  when  his  mother 

said  they  were  to  give  her  love  to  him,  if  he  came  home 
while  she  was  asleep.  He  had  beaten  about  so,  sleeping 
for  the  most  part  in  his  berth,  and  sailing  again  directly  ; 
he  had  never  had  any  place,  he  said,  to  hang  his  winter 
clothes  in  ;  closets  and  bureaus  seemed  treasure-houses 
to  him,  and  the  kitchen  fire  a  luxury  greater  than  a  less 


28  YOUNG  AND   FAIR  AND   SWEET. 

good-looking  man  would  have  deserved.  When  he  came 
home,  drenched  and  chilly,  from  a  winter  voyage,  and 
Teen  took  the  covers  off,  and  the  fiery  heart  of  the  coals 
leaped  out  to  greet  him,  and  she  stood  in  the  rich  color, 
with  her  yellow  hair,  young  and  fair  and  sweet  as  any 
man's  wife  could  look,«and  said  she  had  missed  him,  and 
called  him  her  dear  husband,  Jack  even  went  so  far  as  to 


— »       c» 


feel  that  Teen  was  the  luxury.  He  treated  her  accord- 
ingly ;  that  was  at  first.  He  came  straight  home  to  her ; 
he  kept  her  in  flour  and  fuel  ;  she  had  the  little  things 
and  the  gentle  words  that  women  need.  Teen  was  very 
fond  of  him.  This  was  the  first  of  it,  —  I  was  going  to 
say  this  was  the  worst  of  it.  All  there  was  of  Teen 
seemed  to  have  gone  into  her  love  for  Jack.  A  part  of 
Jack  had  gone  into  his  love  for  Teen.     Teen  was  very 


IT  DID   XOT  LAST.  29 

happy,  to  begin  with.  The  respectable  neighbors  came 
to  see  her,  and  said,  "  We  're  happy  to  make  your  ac- 
quaintance." Nobody  knew  that  it  had  not  always  been 
so  that  Teen's  acquaintance  would  have  been  a  source  of 
social  happiness.  And  she  wrote  to  her  mother  that 
she  was  married  ;  and  her  mother  came  on  to  make  her 
a  little  visit ;  and  Teen  cried  her  soul  out  for  joy.  She 
was  very  modest  and  home-keeping  and  loving ;  no  wife 
in  the  land  was  truer  than  this  girl  he  had  chosen  was 
to  the  fisherman  who  chose  her.  Jack  knew  that.  He 
believed  in  her.  She  made  him  happy  ;  and  therefore 
she  kept  him  right. 

All  this  was  at  first.  It  did  not  last.  Why  should 
we  expect  that,  when  we  see  how  little  there  is  in  the 
relation  of  man  and  woman  which  lasts  ?  If  happy 
birth  and  gentle  rearing,  and  the  forces  of  what  we  call 
education,  and  the  silken  webs  of  spun  refinements,  are 
so  strained  in  the  tie  which  requires  two  who  cannot  get 
away  from  each  other  to  make  each  other  happy,  how 
should  we  ask,  of  the  law  of  chances,  the  miracle  for 
Teen  and  Jack  ? 

There  was  no  miracle.  No  transubstantiation  of  the 
common  bread  to  holy  flesh  was  wrought  upon  that  poor 
altar.  Their  lot  went  the  way  of  other  lots,  with  the 
facts  of  their  history  dead  against  them.  Trouble  came, 
and  poverty,  and  children,  and  care,  and  distaste.  Jack 
took  to  his  old  ways,  and  his  wife  to  the  tears  that  they 
bring.  The  children  died  ;  they  were  poor  sickly  babies 
who  wailed  a  little  while  in  her  arms,  and  slipped  out 
because  there  was  n't  enough  to  them  to  stay.  And  the 
gray  house  was  damp.  Some  said  it  was  diphtheria  ; 
but  their  mother  said  it  was  the  will  of  God.  She  added  : 
Might   his  will  be  done  !     On  the  whole  she  was  not 


3°  HARD  LUCK  CAME. 

sorry.  Their  father  struck  her  when  he  was  in  liquor. 
She  thought  if  the  babies  lived  they  might  get  hurt.  A 
month  before  the  last  one  was  born  she  showed  to 
Jack's  biographer  a  bruise  across  her  shoulder,  long  and 
livid.  She  buttoned  her  dress  over  it  with  hasty  re- 
pentance. 

"  Maybe  I  'd  ought  n't  to  have  told,"  she  said.  "  But 
he  said  he  'd  be  kind  to  me." 

Jack  was  very  sorry  about  this  when  he  was  sober. 
He  kissed  his  wife,  and  bought  a  pair  of  pink  kid  shoes 
for  the  baby  ;  which  it  never  grew  large  enough  to  wear. 

I  am  not  writing  a  temperance  story,  only  the  biogra- 
phy of  a  fisherman,  and  a  few  words  will  say  better  than 
many  how  it  was.  Alcoholized  brain-cells  being  one  of 
the  few  bequests  left  to  society  which  the  heirs  do  not 
dispute,  Jack  went  back  to  his  habits  with  the  ferocity 
that  follows  abstinence.  Hard  luck  came.  Teen  was 
never  much  of  a  housekeeper  ;  she  had  left  her  mother 
too  early  ;  had  never  been  taught.  Things  were  soggy, 
and  not  always  clean  ;  and  she  was  so  busy  in  being 
struck  and  scolded,  and  in  bearing  and  burying  babies, 
that  it  grew  comfortless  beside  the  kitchen  fire.  The 
last  of  the  illusions  which  had  taken  the  name  of  home 
within  the  walls  of  the  crumbling  half-cottage  withered 
out  of  it,  just  as  the  cinnamon  roses  did  the  summer 
Jack  watered  them  with  whiskey  by  a  little  emotional 
mistake. 

A  worse  thing  had  happened  too.  Some  shipmate 
had  "  told "  in  the  course  of  time  ;  and  Teen's  pre- 
matrimonial  story  got  set  adrift  upon  the  current  — 
one  of  the  crudest  currents  of  its  kind  —  of  Fairharbor 
gossip.  The  respectable  neighbors  made  her  feel  it,  as 
only  respectable  neighbors  do  such  things.     Jack,  rag- 


SICKNESS  AND    TROUBLE  AND   SLACKNESS.     3 1 

ing,  overheard  her  name  upon  the  wharves.  Teen  had 
been  "that  she  said  she  would"  to  him.  He  knew  it. 
No  matron  in  the  town  had  kept  her  life  or  heart  more 


true.  In  all  her  sickness  and  trouble  and  slackness,  and 
in  going  cold  or  hungry,  and  in  her  vivid  beauty  that 
none  or  all  of  these  things  could  quench,  Teen  had  car- 
ried a  sweet  dignity  of  her  own  as  the  racer  in  the  old 
Promethean    festival    carried    the    torch    while   he    ran 


32  DRUNK  AND  JEALOUS. 

against  the  wind.  Jack  knew,  —  oh  yes,  he  knew. 
But  he  grew  sullen,  suspicious.  When  he  was  drunk 
he  was  always  jealous ;  it  began  to  take  that  form. 
When  he  was  sober  he  still  admired  his  wife  ;  some- 
times he  went  so  far  as  to  remember  that  he  loved  her. 
When  this  happened,  Teen  dried  her  eyes,  and  brushed 
her  yellow  hair,  and  washed  up  the  kitchen  floor,  and 
made  the  coffee,  and  said  to  the  grocer  when  she  paid 
for  the  sugar  : 

"My  husband  has  reformed." 

One  night  Jack  came  home  unexpectedly  ;  a  strange 
mood  sat  upon  him,  which  his  wife  did  not  find  herself 
able  to  classify  by  any  of  the  instant  and  exquisite  per- 
ceptions which  grow,  like  new  faculties,  in  wives.  He 
had  been  drinking  heavily  when  he  left  her,  and  she  had 
not  looked  for  him  for  days  ;  if  he  sailed  as  he  was,  it 
would  be  a  matter  of  weeks.  Teen  went  straight  to 
him  ;  she  thought  he  might  be  hurt  ;  she  held  out  her 
arms  as  she  would  to  one  of  her  children  ;  but  he  met 
her  with  a  gesture  of  indifference,  and  she  shrank  back. 

"She's  here,"  said  Jack.  "  Mother  Mary 's  in  this 
d town.      I  see  her." 

"I  wish  she'd  talk  to  you,"  said  Teen,  saying  pre- 
cisely the  wrong  thing  by  the  fatal  instinct  which  so 
often  possesses  drunkards'  wives. 

"  You  do,  do  you  ?  "  quoth  Jack.  "  Well,  I  don't.  I 
have  n't  give  her  the  chance."  He  crushed  on  his  hat 
and  stole  out  of  the  house  again. 

But  his  mood  was  on  him  yet ;  the  difference  being 
that  his  wife  was  out  of  it.  He  sulked  and  skulked 
about  the  streets  alone  for  a  while  ;  he  did  not  go  back 
to  the  boys  just  then,  but  wandered  with  the  apparent 
aimlessness    in    which    the    most    tenacious    aims   are 


AND  INDIFFERENT. 


33 


hidden.  Mother  Mary  and  her  husband  were  holding 
sailors'  meetings  in  the  roughest  quarter  of  the  town. 
There  was  need  enough  of  Mother  Mary  in  Fairharbor. 
A  crowd  had  gathered  to  hear  the  novelty.  Fairharbor 
seamen  were  none  too  used  to  being  objects  of  consider- 
ation  ;  it  was  a  matter  of  mark  that  a  parson  and  a  lady 


should  hire  a  room  from  a  rich  fish-firm,  pay  for  it  out 
of  their  own  scanty  pockets,  and  invite  one  in  from  deck 
or  wharf,  in  one's  oil-clothes  or  jumper,  to  hear  what  a 
messmate  of  Jack's  called  a  "high-toned  prayer."  He 
meant  perhaps  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  petition 
treated  the  audience  politely. 

Jack  followed  the  crowd  in  the  dark,  shrinking  in  its 
wake,  for  he  was  now  sober  enough  not  to  feel  like  him- 
self.    He  waited  till  the  last  of  the  fellows  he  knew  had 


34  MOTHER  MARY,    TALL  AND  PALE. 

gone  into  the  place  and  then  crept  up  on  tiptoe,  and 
put  his  face  against  the  window  of  the  salt-cod  ware- 
house where  the  little  congregation  was  gathered,  and 
looked  in.  The  room  was  full  and  bright.  It  wore  that 
same  look  of  peace  and  shelter  which  he  remembered. 
Mother  Mary  stood,  as  she  had  stood  before,  tall  and 
pale  in  her  black  dress,  with  the  white  covering  on  her 
bosom.  Her  husband  had  been  speaking  to  the  fisher- 
men, and  she,  as  Jack  put  his  gnarled  hand  to  his  ex- 
cited eyes  and  his  eyes  to  the  window -glass,  turned 
her  face  full  about,  to  start  the  singing.  She  seemed 
to  Jack  to  look  at  him.  Her  look  was  sad.  He  felt 
ashamed,  and  cowered  down  below  the  window-sill. 
But  he  wanted  to  hear  her  sing.  —  he  had  never  heard 
anybody  sing  like  Mother  Mary,  — and  so  he  stayed  there 
for  a  little  while,  curled  against  the  fish-house.  It  be- 
gan to  rain,  and  he  was  pretty  wet  ;  but  Jack  was  in  his 
jumper,  and  a  ragged  old  jumper  at  that;  he  knew  he 
was  not  so  handsome  as  he  used  to  be  ;  he  felt  that  he 
cut  a  poor  figure  even  for  a  drunken  fisherman  ;  all  the 
self-respect  that  life  had  left  him  shrank  from  letting 
Mother  Mary  see  him.  Jack  would  not  go  in.  A  con- 
fused notion  came  to  him,  as  he  crouched  against  the 
warehouse,  in  the  showers,  that  it  was  just  as  well  it 
should  rain  on  him  ;  it  might  wash  him.  He  pushed  up 
his  sleeves  and  let  the  rain  fall  on  his  arms.  He  found 
an  old  Cape  Ann  turkey  -  box  there  was  lying  about, 
turned  it  edgewise  so  that  one  ragged  knee  might  rest 
upon  it,  and  thus  bring  his  eye  to  a  level  with  the  win- 
dow-sill, while  yet  he  could  not  be  seen  from  within.  So 
he  crouched  listening.  The  glimmer  from  the  prayer- 
room  came  across  the  fisherman's  bared  right  arm,  and 
struck  the  crucifix.     Jack  had  the  unconscious  attitude 


SHE   SEEMED    TO   LOOK  AT  HIM. 


35 


of  one  sinking,  who  had  thrown  up  his  arms  to  be  saved. 
The  Christ  on  the  crucifix  looked  starved  and  sickly. 
Jack  did  not  notice  the  crucifix. 


At  this  moment  Mother  Mary's  yearning  voice  rang 
out  above  the  hoarse  chorus  of  the  fishermen,  whose 
weather-ragged    and    reverent    faces    lifted    themselves 


36  ui*m  reformed:' 

mistily  before  her,  as  if  they  had  been  the  countenance 
of  one  helpless  man  : 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me  !  " 

"  Oh,  my  God !  "  cried  Jack. 

IV. 

It  was  the  next  day  that  some  one  told  Mother  Mary, 
at  the  poor  boarding-house  where  she  stayed,  that  a 
woman  wanted  a  few  words  with  her.  The  visitor  was 
Teen.  She  was  worn  and  wan  and  sobbing  with  excite- 
ment. Her  baby  was  soon  to  be  born.  She  did  not 
look  as  if  she  had  enough  to  eat.  She  had  come,  she 
said,  just  to  see  Mother  Mary,  just  to  tell  her,  for  Jack 
never  would  tell  himself,  but  she  was  sure  her  husband 
had  reformed  ;  he  would  never  drink  again  ;  he  meant  to 
be  a  sober  man  ;  and  Mother  Mary  ought  to  know  she 
did  it,  for  she  did,  God  bless  her  ! 

"  I  've  walked  all  this  way  to  bless  you  for  myself," 
said  Teen.  "  I  ain't  very  fit  for  walkin',  nor  I  can't  af- 
ford a  ferry-ticket,  for  he  didn't  leave  me  nothin'  on  this 
trip,  but  I  Ve  come  to  bless  you.  My  husband  come  to 
your  meetin',  Mother  Mary,  by  himself,  Jack  did.  He 
never  goes  to  no  meetin's, — nobody  couldn't  drove 
him  ;  but  he  come  to  yours  because  he  says  you  treat  a 
man  like  folks,  and  he  would  n't  go  inside,  for  he  'd  ben 
drinkin'  and  he  felt  ashamed.  So  he  set  outside  upon 
a  box  behind  the  winder  and  he  peeked  in.  And  he  said 
it  rained  on  him  while  he  set  peekin',  for  he  wanted  to 
get  a  look  at  you.  And  he  come  home  and  told  me, 
for  we  'd  had  some  words  beforehand,  and  I  was  glad  to 
see  him.  I  was  settin'  there  and  cryin'  when  he  come. 
'I   wouldn't,  Teen,'  says    he,  'for    I've    seen    Mother 


"SO  HELP  ME  MOTHER  MARY."  37 

Mary,  and  I  'm  reformed,'  says  he.     So  he  told  me  how 
he  set  upon  the  box  and  peeked.     He  says  you  looked 
straight  at  him.     He  says  you  stood  up  very  tall  and 
kind  of  white.     He  says  you  read  something  out  of  a 
book,  and  then  you  sang  to  him.     He  says  the  song  you 
sano-  was  Rock  of  Ages,  and  it  made  him  feel  so  bad  I 
had  to  cry  to  see  him.     He  come  in,  and  he  got  down 
on  the  lounge  against  our  window,  and  he  put  his  hand 
acrost  his  eyes  and  groaned  like  he  was  hurted  in  an 
accident.    And  he  says,  '  Teen,  I  wished  I  was  a  better 
man.'     And    I    says,   'Jack,   I  wished  you  was.'     And 
he  says,  '  I  lost  the  hanker  when  I  heard  her  sing  the 
Rock  of  Ages,  and  if  I  lost  the  hanker  I  could  swear 
off.'     So  I  did  n't  answer  him,  for  if  I  says,  '  do  swear 
off,'  he'd  just  swear  on,  —  they  won't,  you  know,  for 
wives.     But  I  made  him  a  cup  of  coffee,  for  I  did  n't 
know  what  else  to  do,  and  I  brought  it  to  him  on  the 
lounge,  and  he  thanked  me.     '  Teen,'  he  says,  '  I  '11  never 
drink  a  drop  again,  so  help  me   Mother  Mary  !  '     And 
then  he  kissed  me,  —  for  they  don't,   you   know,  after 
you  've  been  married.     And  he  's  gone  out  haddockin', 
but  we  parted  very  kind.     And  so  I  come  to  tell  you, 
for  it  may  n't  be  many  days  that  I  could  walk  it,  and 
I  've  been  that  to  him  as  I  said  I  should,  and  I  thought 
you  'd  better  know." 

"You've  had  no  breakfast,"  answered  Mother  Mary, 
"and  you've  walked  too  far.  Here,  stop  at  the  Holly 
Tree  as  you  go  home  ;  get  a  bowl  of  soup  ;  and  take  the 
ferry  back.  There,  there  !  don't  cry  quite  so  hard. 
I  '11  try  to  stay  a  little  longer.  I  won't  leave  town  till 
Jack  comes  in.  It  takes  the  Rock  of  Ages  to  cure  the 
hanker,  Teen.  But  I  've  seen  older  men  than  he  is 
stop  as  if  they  had  been  stopped  by  a  lasso  thrown  from 


38  BAD  LUCK. 

heaven.  If  there's  any  save  in  him,"  added  Mother 
Mary  below  her  breath,  "  he  shall  have  his  chance,  this 
time." 

He  went  aboard  sober,  and  sober  he  stayed.  He  kept 
a  good  deal  by  himself  and  thought  of  many  things. 
His  face  paled  out  and  refined,  as  their  faces  do,  from 
abstinence  ;  the  ghost  of  his  good  looks  hovered  about 
him  ;  he  mended  up  his  clothes  ;  he  did  a  kind  turn  to  a 
messmate  now  and  then  ;  he  told  some  excellent  clean 
stories,  and  raised  the  spirits  of  the  crew  ;  he  lent  a  dol- 
lar to  a  fellow  with  the  rheumatism  who  had  an  indebt- 
edness to  liquidate  for  St.  Galen's  Oil.  When  he  had 
done  this,  he  remembered   that    he    had  left  his  wife 

without  money,  and  said  aloud  :  ''That 's  a mean 

trick  to  play  on  a  woman." 

He  had  bad  luck,  however,  that  trip  ;  his  share  was 
small  ;  he  made  seven  dollars  and  twenty-seven  cents 
in  three  weeks.  This  was  conceded  by  the  crew  of 
the  fishing-schooner  (her  name  was  the  Destiny)  to  be 
because  Jack  had  "sworn  off."  It  is  a  superstition 
among  them.  One  unfamiliar  with  the  lives  of  these 
men  will  hammer  cold  iron  if  he  thinks  to  persuade 
them  that  rum  and  luck  do  not  go  together  ;  or  that  to 
"reform"  does  not  imply  a  reduction  of  personal  in- 
come. You  might  as  well  try  to  put  the  fisherman's 
fist  into  a  Honiton  lace  jumper,  as  the  fisherman's  mind 
into  proportion  upon  this  point. 

Therefore  Jack  took  his  poor  trip  carelessly  ;  it  was 
to  be  expected  ;  he  would  explain  it  to  Mother  Mary 
when  he  got  in.  He  drank  nothing  at  all  ;  and  they 
weighed  for  home. 

When  Jack  stepped  off  the  Destiny,  at  Zephaniah 
Salt    &   Co.'s   wharf  at   Fairharbor,  after  that  voyage, 


BUT  QUITE  SOBER.  39 

clean,  pale,  good-natured,  and  sober,  thinking  that  he 
would  get  shaved  before  he  hurried  home  to  Teen,  and 
wishing  he  could  pay  the  grocer's  bill  upon  the  way, 
and  thinking  that,  in  default  of  this,  he  would  start  an 
account  at  the  market,  and  carry  her  a  chop  or  a  sau- 
sage, in  fact,  thinking  about  her  with  an  absorption 
which  resembled  consideration,  if  not  affection, — sud- 
denly he  caught  her  name  upon  the  wharves. 

It  may  have  been  said  of  accident,  or  of  the  devil,  — 
God  knew  ;  they  may  have  been  too  drunk  to  notice 
Jack  at  first,  or  they  may  have  seen  and  scented  from 
afar  the  bad  blood  they  stirred,  like  the  hounds  they 
were.  It  will  never  be  told.  The  scandal  of  these 
places  is  incredibly  barbarous,  but  it  is  less  than  the  bar- 
barity of  drinking  men  to  a  man  who  strikes  out  from 
among  themselves,  and  fights  for  his  respectability. 

The  words  were  few,  —  they  are  not  for  us,  —  but 
they  were  enough  to  do  the  deed.  Jack  was  quite  so- 
ber. He  understood.  They  assailed  the  honor  of  his 
home,  the  truth  of  his  wife  ;  they  hurled  her  past  at  her 
and  at  himself ;  they  derided  the  trust  which  he  had  in 
her  in  his  absence ;  they  sneered  at  the  "  reformed 
man  "  whose  domestic  prospects  were  —  as  they  were  ; 
they  exulted  over  him  with  the  exultation  in  the  sight  of 
the  havoc  wrought,  which  is  the  most  inexplicable  im- 
pulse of  evil. 

Everybody  knew  how  hot-blooded  Jack  was ;  and 
when  the  fury  rushed  red  over  his  face  painted  gray  by 
abstinence,  there  was  a  smart  scattering  upon  the 
wharves. 

His  hand  clapped  to  his  pockets  ;  but  his  was  an  old, 
cheap,  rusty  pistol  (he  had  swapped  a  Bible  and  his 
trawls  for  it  once,  upon  a  spree,  and  got  cheated)  ;  it 


40  FIFTEEN  OPEN  DOORS. 

held  but  one  cartridge,  and  his  wrist  shook.  The  shot 
went  sputtering  into  the  water,  and  no  harm  came  of  it. 
Jack  jammed  the  pistol  back  into  his  pocket ;  he  glared 
about  him  madly,  but  had  his  glare  for  his  pains  ;  the 
men  were  afraid  of  him  ;  he  was  alone  upon  the  wharf. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  hesitated.  Would  that 
it  could.  Raving  to  himself,  —  head  down,  hands 
clenched,  feet  stumbling  like  a  blind  man's,  —  the  fish- 
erman sank  into  the  first  open  door  he  staggered  by,  as 
a  seiner,  pierced  by  an  invisible  swordfish,  sinks  into 
the  sea.  He  had  fifteen  such  places  to  pass  before 
he  reached  his  house.  His  chances  were  —  as  such 
chances  go  —  at  best. 

He  drank  for  half  an  hour  —  an  hour  — a  half  more  — 
came  out,  and  went  straight  home. 

It  was  now  night  of  a  February  day.  It  had  not 
been  a  very  cold  day ;  a  light,  clean  snow  had  fallen, 
which  was  thawing  gently.  Jack,  looking  dimly  on 
through  his  craze,  saw  the  light  of  his  half  of  the  gray 
cottage  shining  ahead  ;  he  perceived  that  the  frost  was 
melted  from  the  windows.  The  warm  color  came 
quietly  down  to  greet  him  across  the  fresh  snow ;  it  had 
to  him  in  his  delirium  the  look  of  a  woman's  eyes  when 
they  are  true,  and  lean  out  of  her  love  to  greet  a  man. 
He  did  not  put  this  to  himself  in  these  words,  but  only 
said  : 

"Them  lamps  look  like  she  used  to, — curse  her  !  " 
and  so  went  hurtling  on. 

He  dashed  up  against  the  house,  as  a  bowsprit  dashes 
on  the  rocks,  took  one  mad  look  through  the  unfrosted 
window,  below  the  half-drawn  curtain,  and  flung  himself 
against  the  door,  and  in. 

His  wife  sat  there  in  the  great  rocking-chair,  leaning 


JACK  AXD  JIM.  41 

back  ;  she  had  a  pillow  behind  her  and  her  feet  on  the 
salt-fish  box  which  he  had  covered  once  to  make  a 
cricket  for  her,  when  they  were  first  married.  She 
looked  pale  and  pretty  —  very  pretty.  She  was  talking 
to  a  visitor  who  sat  upon  the  lounge  beside  her.  It  was 
a  man.  Now,  Jack  knew  this  man  well  ;  it  was  an  old 
messmate  ;  he  had  sworn  off,  a  year  ago,  and  they  had 
gone  different  ways  ;  he  used  to  be  a  rough  fellow  ;  but 
people  said  now  you  would  n't  know  him. 

"  I  ain't  so  drunk  but  I  see  who  you  be,  Jim,"  began 
the  husband  darkly  ;  "  I  '11  settle  with  you  another  day. 
I  've  got  that  to  say  to  my  wife  I  'd  say  better  if  we 
missed  your  company.      Leave  us  by  ourselves  !  " 

"  Look  here,  Jack,"  Jim  flashed  good-hum oredly, 
"  you  're  drunk,  you  know.  She  '11  tell  you  what  I  come 
for.  You  ask  her.  Seein'  she  was  n't  right  smart  — 
and  there  's  them  as  says  she  lacked  for  victuals, — my 
wife  sent  me  over  with  a  bowl  of  cranberry  sass,  so  help 
me  Heaven  !  " 

"  I  '11  kill  you  some  other  evenin'.  Leave  us  be  !  " 
cried  Jack. 

"  We  was  settin'  and  talkin'  about  the  Reform  Club 
when  you  come  in,"  objected  Jim,  with  the  patience  of 
an  old  friend.  "  We  was  wonderin'  if  we  could  n't  get 
you  to  sign,  Jack.  Ask  her  if  we  was  n't.  Come,  now  ! 
I  would  n't  make  a  fool  of  myself  if  I  was  you,  Jack. 
See  there.  You  've  set  her  to  cryin'  already.  And  she 
ain't  right  smart." 

"  Clear  out  of  my  house  !  "  *  thundered  Jack.  "  Leave 
us  be  by  ourselves  !  " 

"  I  don't  know  's  I  'd  ought  to,"  hesitated  Jim. 

*  Such  peculiarities  of  Jack's  pronunciation  as  were  attributable  to  his 
condition  will  not  be  reproduced  here. 


42  "FOR    THE  LOVE   OF  MERCY  I* 

"  Leave  us  be  !  or  I  won't  leave  you  be  a  d min- 
ute longer !     Ain't  it  my  house  ?     Get  out  of  it  !  " 

"  It  is,  that 's  a  fact,"  admitted  the  visitor,  looking 
perplexed  ;  "  but  I  declare  to  Jupiter  I  don't  know  's 
I  'd  oughter  leave  it,  the  way  things  look.  Have  your 
senses,  Jack,  my  boy  !  Have  your  senses  !  She  ain't 
right  smart." 

But  with  this  Jack  sprang  upon  him,  and  the  wife 
cried  out  between  them,  for  the  love  of  mercy,  that  mur- 
der would  be  done. 

"Leave  us  be!"  she  pleaded,  sobbing.  "  Nothin' 
else  won't  pacify  him.  Go,  Jim,  go,  and  shut  the  door, 
and  thank  her,  for  the  cranberry  sarse  was  very  kind 
of  her,  and  for  my  husband's  sake  don't  tell  nobody  he 
wasn't  kind  to  me.     There.     That 's  right.     There." 

She  sank  back  into  the  rocking-chair,  for  she  was 
feeble  still,  and  looked  gently  up  into  her  husband's 
face.     All  the  tones  of  her  agitated  voice  had  changed. 

She  spoke  very  low  and  calmly,  as  if  she  gathered  her 
breath  for  the  first  stage  of  a  struggle  whose  nature  she 
solemnly  understood.     She  had  grown  exceedingly  pale. 

"Jack,  dear?"  softly. 

"  I  '11  give  ye  time,"  he  answered  with  an  ominous 
quiet.     "Tell  yer  story  first.     Out  with  it !  " 

"I  haven't  got  nothin'  to  tell,  Jack.  He  brought 
the  cranberry  sarse,  for  his  wife  took  care  of  me,  and 
she  was  very  kind.  And  he  set  a  little,  and  we  was 
talkin'  about  the  club,  just  as  he  says  we  was.  It  \s 
Mother  Mary's  club,  Jack.  She  's  made  Jim  secretary, 
and  she  wanted  you  to  join,  for  I  told  her  you  'd  re- 
formed. Oh,  Jack,  I  told  her  you  'd  reformed  !  —  Jack, 
Jack  !  Oh,  Jack  !  What  are  you  goin'  to  do  to  me  ' 
What  makes  you  look  like  that  ?  —  Jack,  Jack,  Jack  /  " 


HE    HAS  PAST  REAS    N.  45 

^:and  up  here  !  "  he  raved.  He  was  past  reason, 
and  she  saw  it ;  he  tore  off  his  coat  and  pushed  up  his 
sleeves  from  his  tattooed  arms. 

You've  plaved  me  false,  I  say!  I  trusted  ye.  and 
you  ve  tricked  me.  I  '11  teach  ye  to  be  the  talk  upon 
the  wharves  another  time  when  I  get  in  from  George  - 

She  stood  as  he  bade  her,  tottered  and  sank  back  ; 
crawled  up  again,  holding  by  the  wooden  arm  of  the 
rocking-chair,  and  stretched  one  hand  out  to  him,  feebly. 
She  did  not  dare  to  touch  him  ;  if  she  had  clung  to  him, 
he  would  have  throttled  her.  When  she  saw  him  roll- 
ing up  his  sleeves,  her  heart  stood  still.  But 
thought :  "I  will  not  show  him  I  m  afraid  of  him.  It's 
the  only  chance  I  've  got.'' 

The   poor  girl  looked   up   once   into   his  face,   and 
thought  she  smiled. 

-Jack5     Dear  Jack 

•  •  I  *11  teach  ye  !     I  '11  teach  y- 

••  Oh.  wait  a  momer.:  For  the  love  of  Heaven, 

—  stop  a  minute  !  I  've  been  that  I  said  I  'd  be  to  you, 
since  we  was  married.  I  ve  been  an  honest  wife  to  you, 
my  boy,  and  there  's  none  on  earth  nor  heaven  as  can 
look  me  in  the  eye  and  darst  to  say  I  have  n*t.  I  swore 
to  ve  upon  the  Rock  of  A_ces.  Mother  Man,-  witnessin', 

—  why,  JackJ"  her  voice  sank  to  infini:  s  :ness- 
"  have  ye  forgotten  ?  You  ain't  yourself,  poor  boy. 
You'll  be  so  sorry.  I  ain't  very  strong,  yet.  —  you'd 
feel  bad  if  you  should  hit  me  —  again.  I  'd  hate  to 
have  vou  feel  so  bad.  Jack  dear,  don't  Go  look  in  the 
other  room,  before  you  strike  again.     Ye  ain't  seen  it 

Jack,  for  the  love  of  mercy  !  —  Tack  !  Jack  ! 
"Say  you've  played  me  false,  and   I'll  stop.     Own 
up,  and  I  '11  quit.     Own  up  to  me.  I  s 


44         "YOU  SAID    YOU'D  BE  KIND    TO  ME/" 

"  I  can't  own  up  to  you,  for  I  swore  you  by  the  Rock 
of  Ages  ;  I  swore  ye  I  would  be  an  honest  wife.  You 
may  pummel  me  to  death,  but  I  '11  not  lie  away  them 
words  I  swore  to  ye  .  .  .  by  that,  .  .  .  Jack,  for  the  love 
of  Heaven,  don't  ye,  Jack !  For  the  way  you  used  to 
feel  to  me,  clear,  dear  Jack  !  For  the  sake  of  the  babies 
we  had,  .  .  .  and  you  walked  beside  of  me,  to  bury  'em  ! 
Oh,  for  God's  sake  .  .  .  Jack  !  .  .  .  Oh,  you  said  you  'd 
be  kind  to  me  .  .  .  Oh,  ye  '11  be  so  sorry  !  For  the  love 
of  pity  !  For  the  love  of  God  !  Not  the  pistol !  Oh, 
for  the  Rock  of  "  — 

But  there  he  struck  her  down.  The  butt  end  of  the 
weapon  was  heavy  enough  to  do  the  deed.  He  struck, 
and  then  flung  it  away. 

Upon  his  bared  arm,  as  it  came  crashing,  the  crucifix 
was  spattered  red. 

V. 

He  stood  up  stupidly  and  looked  about  the  room. 
The  covers  were  off  the  kitchen  stove,  and  the  hea/t  of 
the  coals  blazed  out.  Her  yellow  hair  had  loosened  as 
she  fell,  and  shone  upon  the  floor. 

He  remembered  that  she  spoke  about  the  other  room, 
and  said  of  something  yonder,  that  he  had  n't  seen  it 
yet.  Confusedly  he  wondered  what  it  was.  He  stum- 
bled in  and  stared  about  the  bedroom.  It  was  not  very 
light  there,  and  it  was  some  moments  before  he  per- 
ceived the  cradle,  standing  straight  across  his  way. 
The  child  waked  as  he  hit  the  cradle,  and  began  to  cry, 
stretching  out  its  hands. 

He  had  forgotten  all  about  the  baby.  There  had 
been  so  many. 


46  A    BITTER    VOYAGE. 

"  You  'd  better  get  up,  Teen,"  he  said  as  he  went 
out;  "it's  cryin'  after  you." 

He  shut  the  door  and  staggered  down  the  steps.-  He 
hesitated  once,  and  thought  he  would  go  back  and  say 
to  her  : 

"  What  's  the  use  of  layin'  there  ?  " 

But  he  thought  better,  or  worse,  of  it,  and  went  his 
way.  He  went  out  and  reshipped  at  once,  lingering 
only  long  enough  to  drink  madly  on  the  way,  at  a  place 
he  knew,  where  he  was  sure  to  be  let  alone.  The  men 
were  afraid  of  Jack,  when  he  was  so  far  gone  under  as 
this.  Nobody  spoke  to  him.  He  went  down  to  Salt 
Brothers'  wharf,  opposite  Salt  &  Co.'s,  and  found  the 
Daredevil,  just  about  to  weigh.  She  was  short  by  one 
hand,  and  took  him  as  he  was. 

He  was  surprised  to  find  himself  aboard  when  the 
next  sun  went  down  ;  he  had  turned  in  his  bunk  and  was 
overheard  to  call  for  Teen,  ordering  her  to  do  some  ser- 
vice for  him,  testily  enough. 

"  Oh,"  he  muttered,  "  she  ain't  here,  is  she  ?  Be 
blasted  if  I  ain't  on  the  Daredevil." 

He  was  good  for  nothing,  for  a  matter  of  days,  and 
silent  or  sullen  for  the  trip.  It  had  been  a  heavy  spree. 
He  fell  to,  when  he  came  to  himself,  and  fished  desper- 
ately ;  his  luck  turned,  and  he  made  money  ;  he  made 
seventy  -  five  dollars.  They  were  gone  three  weeks. 
They  had  a  bitter  voyage,  for  it  was  March. 

They  struck  a  gale  at  Georges',  and  another  coming 
home.  It  snowed  a  great  deal,  and  the  rigging  froze. 
The  crew  were  uncommonly  cold.  They  kept  the  stew- 
ard cooking  briskly,  and  four  or  five  hot  meals  a  clay 
were  not  enough  to  keep  one's  courage  up.  They  were 
particular  about  their  cooking,  as  fishermen  are,  and 


EVEN  FOR  MARCH  AT  GEORGES'.  47 

the  steward  of  the  Daredevil  was  famous  in  his  calling. 
But  it  was  conceded  to  be  unusually  cold,  even  for 
March,  at  Georges'.  One  must  keep  the  blood  racing, 
somehow,  for  life's  sake. 

Whiskey  flowed  fast  between  meals.  Jack  was  ob- 
served not  to  limit  himself.  "  It  was  for  luck,"  he  said. 
Take  it  through,  it  was  a  hard  trip.  The  sober  men  — 
there  were  some  —  looked  grim  and  pinched  ;  the  drink- 
ers ugly. 

"  It 's  a  hound's  life,"  said  a  dory-mate  of  Jack's  one 
day.  His  name  was  Rowe  —  Rowe  Salt  ;  he  was  a  half- 
brother  of  Jim's.  But  Jim  was  at  home.  And  Teen, 
of  course,  was  at  home.  Jack  had  not  spoken  of  her  ; 
he  had  thought  of  her, — he  had  thought  of  nothing 
else.  God  knows  what  those  thoughts  had  been.  When 
Rowe  spoke  to  him  in  this  fashion,  Jack  looked  hard  at 
him. 

"  I  've  been  thinkin'  ef  it  disobligated  a  feller,"  he 
said. 

"  Hey  ?  "  asked  Rowe. 

"  If  you  was  treated  like  folks  ;  but  you  ain't.  You  're 
froze.  You  're  soaked.  You  're  wrecked.  Your  nets 
is  stole.  You  're  drove  off  in  the  fog.  You  're  drown- 
ded,  and  you  lose  your  trawls.  If  you  swear  off,  you 
miss  your  luck.  It 's  dirty  aboard.  Folks  don't  like 
the  looks  of  you.  There  's  alwers  a  hanker  in  the  pit  o' 
your  stomick.  When  you  get  upon  a  tear  you  don't 
know  what  you  —  do  to  — folks." 

Jack  stopped  himself  abruptly,  and  leaned  upon  his 
oar  ;  they  were  trawling,  and  the  weather  grew  thick. 

"Rowe,"  he  said,  staring  off  into  the  fog,  "did  ye 
ever  think  we  was  like  fishes,  us  Fairharbor  folks  ?" 

"I  don't  know's  I  hev,"  said  the  dory-mate,  staring 
too. 


48       "A    WOMAN   YONDER    ON   THE    WATER!" 

"  Well,  we  be,  I  think.  We  live  in  it  and  we  're 
drownded  in  it,  and  we  can't  get  out  on  't,  —  we  can't 
get  out.  We  look  like  'em,  too.  I  've  thought  about 
that.  Some  of  us  look  like  haddock.  You  've  got  the 
halibut  look  yourself.  Skipper,  he  's  got  the  jib  of  a 
monk-fish, — you  ken  see  it  for  yourself.  There's  a 
man  I  messed  with,  once,  reminded  me  of  a  sculpin.  I 
guess  I  'd  pass  for  a  lobster,  myself,  —  for  color,  any- 
how. We  take  it  out  someways,  each  on  us.  Don't 
ye  know  the  look  the  women  folks  have  when  they  get 
old  and  have  gone  hungry  ?  You  can  tell  by  the  build 
of  a  boy  which  way  he'll  turn  out,  —  halibut  way,  or 


hake,  or  mebbe  mackerel  if  he  's  sleek  and  little.  It 's  a 
kind  of  a  birth-mark,  I  should  n't  wonder.  There  's  no 
gettin'  out  on  't,  no  more  'n  it  out  of  you.  Sometimes 
I  used  to  think  — 

"  Good  Lord  !  "  cried  Jack.  He  laid  down  his  oar 
again,  and  the  dory  wheeled  to  starboard  sharply. 

"  Rowe  Salt,  you  look  there  !  You  tell  me  if  you  see 
a  woman  yonder,  on  the  water  ! " 

"  You  've  got  the  jim-jams,  Jack.    Women  folks  don't 


"WE   HAD   SOME    WORDS:'  49 

walk  at  Georges'.  I  can't  see  nothin'  nowhere,  but  it's 
thick  as  "  — 

"  It's  thick  as  hell,"  interrupted  Jack,  "and  there's 
a  woman  walkin'  on  the  water,  —  Lord  !  don't  you  see 
her  ?  Lord  !  her  hair  is  yeller  hair,  and  it  's  streamin' 
over  her,  —  don't  you  see  her  ?  She  's  walkin'  on  this 
devilish  fog  to-wards  the  dory, — Teen?  Teen  !  There! 
Lord  save  me,  Rowe,  if  I  did  n't  see  my  wife  come 
walkin'  towards  us,  us  settin'  in  this  dory.  —  Hi-i-igh  ! 
I  '11  swear  off  when  I  get  home.  I  '11  tell  her  so.  I 
hate  to  see  such  things." 

"  You  see,  Rowe,"  Jack  added  presently,  —  for  he  had 
not  spoken  after  that,  but  had  fallen  grimly  to  work. 
It  was  ten  below,  and  the  wind  was  taking  the  backward 
spring  for  a  bitter  blow ;  both  men,  tugging  at  their 
trawls  through  the  high  and  icy  sea,  were  suffering  too 
much  to  talk,  —  "  ye  see  we  had  some  words  before  I 
come  aboard,  and  she  war  n't  right  smart.  The  baby 
can't  be  very  old.  I  don'  know  how  old  it  is.  I  was 
oncommon  drunk  ;  I  don't  remember  what  I  did  to  her. 
I  'm  afraid  I  hit  her,  —  for  I  had  some  words  with  her. 
I  wished  I  was  at  home.  She  won't  tell  nobody.  She 
never  does.  But  I  'm  set  to  be  at  home  and  tell  her 
I  've  sworn  off.  I  've  got  money  for  her  this  trip,  too  ; 
I  'm  afraid  she  's  in  a  hurry  for  it." 

After  this  outburst  of  confidence,  Jack  seemed  to 
cling  to  his  dory-mate  ;  he  followed  him  about  deck,  and 
looked  wistfully  at  him.  Jack  had  begun  to  take  on  the 
haggard  look  of  the  abstainer  once  again.  The  crew 
thought  he  did  not  seem  like  himself.  He  had  stopped 
drinking,  abruptly,  after  that  day  in  the  fog,  and  suffered 
heavily  from  the  weather  and  from  exposure. 

"  I  say,  Rowe,"  he  asked  one  day,  "  if  anything  was 


50         THE  DESTINY  AND    THE   DAREDEVIL. 

to  happen,  would  you  jest  step  in  and  tell  my  wife  I 
did  n't  believe  that  yarn  about  her  ?    She'll  know." 

Now  it  befell,  that  when  they  were  rounding  Eastern 
Point,  and  not  till  then,  they  bespoke  the  Destiny,  which 
was  outward  bound,  and  signaled  them.  She  drew  to 
speaking  distance,  and  her  skipper  had  a  word  with  the 
master  of  the  Daredevil,  but  he  spoke  none  too  loud, 
and  made  his  errand  quickly,  and  veered  to  his  own 
course,  and  the  two  boats  parted  company,  and  the  Dare- 
devil came  bustling  in.     They  were  almost  home. 

It  was  remembered  afterward  that  Jack  was  badly 
frostbitten  upon  that  voyage  ;  he  looked  badly  ;  he  had 
strange  ways  ;  the  men  did  not  know  exactly  how  to 
take  him.     He  was  overheard  to  say  : 

"  /ain't  agoin'  to  go  to  Georges'  again." 

Rowe  Salt  overheard  this,  after  the  skipper  of  the 
Destiny  had  signaled  and  tacked.  Jack  was  sitting  aft 
alone,  when  he  said  it,  looking  seaward.  He  had  paid 
little  or  no  attention  to  the  incident  of  the  Destiny,  but 
sat  staring,  plunged  in  some  mood  of  his  own  which 
seemed  as  solitary,  as  removed  from  his  kind  and  from 
their  comprehension,  as  the  moods  of  mental  disorder 
are  from  the  sane. 

So  then,  with  such  dexterity  as  the  ignorant  man 
could  muster,  Salt  got  his  friend  down  below,  on  some 
pretext,  and  stood  looking  at  him  helplessly. 

"You  don't  look  well,  Rowe,"  Jack  suggested  pleas- 
antly. 

"  Jack,"  said  his  dory-mate,  turning  white  enough, 
'■'  I  '11  make  no  bones  of  it,  nor  mince  nothin',  for  some- 
body 's  got  to  tell  ye,  and  they  said  it  must  be  me. 
There 's  a  warrant  after  ye.  The  sheriff's  on  the  tug 
betwixt  us  and  the  wharf.  She  \s  layin'  off  of  the  island, 
him  aboard  of  her." 


A    TEST  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  5  I 

"I  never  was  in  prison,"  faltered  Jack.  "The  boys 
have  always  bailed  me." 

"T ain't  a  bailin'  matter,  Jack,  this  time." 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  I  said  it  was  n't  a  bailin'  business.  Somebody  's 
got  to  tell  you." 

Jack  gazed  confidingly  up  into  his  friend's  face. 

"What  was  it  that  I  done,  old  boy?     Can't  ye  tell 

me?" 

"  Let  the  sheriff  tell  you.  Ask  the  sheriff.  I  'd 
rather  it  was  the  sheriff  told  you,  Jack." 

"  Tell  me  what  it  is  I  done,  Rowe  Salt ;  I  'd  tell  you." 
He  looked  puzzled. 

"  The  sheriff  knows  more  about  it  nor  I  do,"  begged 
the  fisherman  ;  "  don't  make  an  old  messmate  tell  you." 

"All  right,"  said  Jack,  turning  away.  He  had  now 
grown  very  quiet.  He  pleaded  no  more,  only  to  mutter 
once  : 

"  I  'd  rather  heard  it  from  a  messmate." 

Rowe  Salt  took  a  step  or  two,  turned,  stopped,  stirred, 
and  turned  again. 

"You  killed  somebody,  then,  if  you  will  know." 

"  Killed  somebody  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  I  was  drunk  and  killed  somebody  ?  " 

"  Lord  help  you,  yes." 

"  I  hope,"  hoarsely —  "  Look  here,  Salt.  I  hope  Teen 
wont  know. 

"I  say,  Rowe,"  after  a  long  pause,  "who  was  it  that 
I  killed?" 

"Ask  the  sheriff." 

"Who  was  it  that  I  killed  ?" 

"The    skipper '11  tell  you,  mebby.     I  won't.     No,  I 


52  "TELL  ME    WHO  IT  WAS.'" 

vow  I  won't.  Let  me  go.  I  've  done  my  share  of  this. 
Let  me  up  on  deck  !     I  want  the  air !  " 

"I  won't  let  you  up  on  deck—  so  help  me!  —  till  you 
tell!" 

"  Let  me  off,  Jack,  let  me  off  !  " 


"  Tell  me  who  it  was,  I  say  !  " 

"Lord  in  heaven,  the  poor  devil    don't    know, — he 
really  don't." 


ROUNDING  EASTERN  POINT.  53 

"  I  thought  you  would  ha'  told  me,  Rowe,"  said  Jack 
with  a  smile,  —  his  old  winning  smile,  that  had  capti- 
vated his  messmates  all  his  life. 

"  I  will  tell  you  !  "  cried  Rowe  Salt  with  an  oath  of 
agony.  "  You  killed  your  wife  !  You  murdered  her. 
She  's  dead     Teen  ain't  to  home.      She  's  dead." 


VI. 

They  made  way  for  him  at  this  side  and  at  that,  for 
he  sprang  up  the  gangway,  and  dashed  among  them. 
When  he  saw  them  all  together,  and  how  they  looked  at 
him,  he  stopped.  A  change  seemed  to  strike  his  pur- 
pose, be  it  what  it  might. 

"  Boys,"  said  Jack,  looking  all  about,  "  ye  won't  have 
to  go  no  bail  for  me.     I  '11  bide  my  account,  this  time." 

He  parted  from  them,  for  they  let  him  do  the  thing 
he  would,  and  got  himself  alone  into  the  bows,  and  there 
he  sank  down,  crouching,  and  no  one  spoke  to  him. 

The  Daredevil  rounded  Eastern  Point,  and  down  the 
shining  harbor,  all  sails  set,  came  gayly  in.  They  were 
almost  home. 

Straightway  there  started  out  upon  the  winter  sea  a 
strong,  sweet  tenor,  like  a  cry.  It  was  Jack's  voice,  — 
everybody  knew  it.  He  stood  by  himself  in  the  bows, 
back  to  them,  singing  like  an  angel  or  a  madman,  — 
>.cme  said  this  ;  some  said  the  other,  — 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me  ! 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee  ;  .  .  . 

Thou  must  save,  and  thou  alone  .  .  . 

When  I  soar  to  worlds  unknown, 
See  thee  on  thy  judgment  throne,"  — 

sang  Jack. 


54 


THE  LAST  HAVEN, 


With  the  ceasing  of  his  voice,  they  divined  how  it 
was,  by  one  instinct,  and  every  man  sprang  to  him. 
But  he  had  leaped  and  gained  on  them. 


The  waters  of  Fairharbor  seemed  themselves  to  leap 
to  greet  him  as  he  went  down.  These  that  had  borne 
him  and  ruined  him  buried  him  as  if  they  loved  him. 


A    BAPTISM.  55 

He  had  pushed  up  his  sleeves  for  the  spring,  hard  to  the 
shoulder,  like  a  man  who  would  wrestle  at  odds. 

As  he  sank,  one  bared  arm,  thrust  above  the  crest  of 
the  long  wave,  lifted  itself  toward  the  sky.  It  was  his 
right  arm,  on  which  the  crucifix  was  stamped. 

VII. 

White  and  gold  as  the  lips  and  heart  of  a. lily,  the 
day  blossomed  at  Fairharbor  one  June  Sunday,  when 
these  things  were  as  a  tale  that  is  told.  It  was  a  warm 
day,  sweet  and  still.  There  was  no  wind,  no  fog.  The 
harbor  wore  her  innocent  face.  She  has  one  ;  who  can 
help  believing  in  it,  to  see  it  ?  The  waves  stretched 
themselves  upon  the  beach  as  if  they  had  been  hands 
laid  out  in  benediction  ;  and  the  colors  of  the  sky  were 
like  the  expression  of  a  strong  and  solemn  countenance. 

So  thought  Mother  Mary,  standing  by  her  husband's 
side  that  day,  and  looking  off  from  the  little  creature  in 
her  arms  to  the  faces  of  the  fishermen  gathered  there  • 
about  her  for  the  service.  It  was  an  open-air  service,  held 
upon  the  beach,  where  the  people  she  had  served  and 
loved  could  freely  come  to  her  —  and  would.  They  had 
sought  the  scene  in  large  numbers.  The  summer  peo- 
ple, too,  strolled  down,  distant  and  different,  and  hung 
upon  the  edges  of  the  group.  They  had  a  civil  welcome, 
but  no  more.  This  was  a  fisherman's  affair  ;  nobody 
needed  them  ;  Mother  Mary  did  not  belong  to  them. 

"  The  meetin  's  ours,"  said  Rowe  Salt.  "  It 's  us  she  's 
after.     The  boarders  ain't  of  no  account  to  her." 

His  brother  Jim  was  there  with  Rowe,  and  Jim's  wife, 
and  some  of  the  respectable  women  neighbors.  The 
skipper  of  the  Daredevil  was  there,  and  so  were  many 


"But  no  one  heard  the  other  words,  said  BY  Mother   Marv." 
Page  58. 


IN  AN  UNKNOWN  TONGUE,  57 

of  Jack's  old  messmates.  When  it  was  understood  that 
Mother  Mary  had  adopted  Jack's  baby,  the  news  had 
run  like  rising  tide,  from  wharf  to  wharf,  from  deck  to 
deck,  —  everybody  knew  it,  by  this  time.  Almost  every- 
body was  there,  to  see  the  baptism.  The  Fairharbor 
fishermen  were  alert  to  the  honor  of  their  guild.  They 
turned  out  in  force  to  explain  matters,  sensitive  to  show 
their  best.  They  would  have  it  understood  that  one 
may  have  one's  faults,  but  one  does  not,  therefore,  mur- 
der one's  wife. 

The  scene  in  the  annals  and  the  legends  of  Fairharbor 
was  memorable,  and  will  be  long.  It  was  as  strange  to 
the  seamen  as  a  leaf  thrown  over  from  the  pages  of  the 
Book  of  Life,  inscribed  in  an  unknown  tongue  of  which 
they  only  knew  that  it  was  the  tongue  of  love.  Whether 
it  spoke  as  of  men  or  of  angels,  they  would  have  been 
perplexed  to  say. 

Into  her  childless  life,  its  poverty,  its  struggles,  its 
sacrifices,  and  its  blessed  hope,  Mother  Mary's  great 
heart  took  the  baby  as  she  took  a  man's  own  better  na- 
ture for  him  ;  that  which  lay  so  puny  and  so  orphaned  in 
those  wild  lives  of  theirs,  an  infant  in  her  hands. 

Jack's  baby,  Jack's  baby  and  Teen's,  as  if  it  had  been 
anybody's  else  baby,  was  to  be  baptized  "like  folks." 
Jack's  baby,  poor  little  devil,  was  to  have  his  chance. 

The  men  talked  it  over  gravely  ;  it  affected  them  with 
a  respect  one  would  not  anticipate,  who  did  not  know 
them.  They  had  their  Sunday  clothes  on.  They  were 
all  clean.  They  had  a  quiet  look.  One  fellow  who  had 
taken  a  little  too  much  ventured  down  upon  the  beach  ; 
but  he  was  hustled  away  from  the  christening,  and 
clucked  in  the  cove,  and  hung  upon  the  rocks  to  dry. 
One  must  be  sober  who  helped  to  baptize  that  baby. 


58  IT   WAS  A    TRUST 

This  was  quite  understood. 

They  sang  the  hymn,  Jack's  hymn  and  Teen's  :  of 
course  they  sang  the  Rock  of  Ages  ;  and  Mother  Mary's 
husband  read  "  the  chapter  "  to  them,  as  he  was  used, 
and  spoke  to  them  ;  and  it  was  so  still  among  them 
thaf  they  could  hear  each  wave  of  the  placid  sea  beat 
evenly  as  if  they  listened  to  the  beating  of  a  near  and 
mighty  peaceful  heart.  Mother  Mary  spoke  with  them 
herself  a  little.  She  told  them  how  she  took  the  child,  in 
despair  of  the  past,  in  hope  of  the  future  ;  in  pain  and  in 
pity,  and  in  love  ;  yearning  over  him,  and  his,  and  those 
who  were  of  their  inheritance,  and  fate,  their  chances, 
and  their  sorrows,  and  their  sins.  She  told  them  of  the 
child's  pure  heart  within  us  all,  which  needs  only  to  be 
mothered  to  be  saved  ;  which  needs  only  that  we  foster 
it,  to  form  it  ;  which  needs  that  we  treat  it  as  we  do 
other  weak  and  helpless  things,  whether  in  ourselves  or 
in  another.  What  was  noble  in  them  all,  she  said,  was 
to  them  like  this  little  thing,  to  her.  It  was  a  trust. 
She  gave  it  to  them,  so  she  said,  as  she  took  the  baby, 
here  before  their  witnessing,  to  spare  him  from  their 
miseries,  if  she  might. 

They  were  touched  by  this,  or  they  seemed  to  be  ; 
for  they  listened  from  their  souls. 

"  We  'd  oughter  take  off  our  hats,"  somebody  whis- 
pered. So  they  stood  uncovered  before  the  minister, 
and  Mother  Mary,  and  Jack's  poor  baby.  The  sacred 
drops  flashed  in  the  white  air.  Dreamily  the  fishermen 
heard  the  sacred  words  : 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Father :  And  of  the  Son  :  And 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.     Amen." 

But  no  one  heard  the  other  words,  said  by  Mother 
Mary  close  and  low,  when  she  received  the  child  into 
her  arms  again,  and  bowed  her  face  above  it :  — 


AM  EX. 


59 


11  My  son,  I  take  thee  for  the  sake  and  for  the  love  of 
thy  father ;  and  of  thy  mother.     Be  tJwn  their  holy  ghost." 

But  the  fishermen,  used  not  to  understand  her,  but 
only  to  her  understanding  them,  perceiving  that  she 
was  at  prayer,  they  knew  not  why,  asking  of  Heaven 
they  knew  not  what,  — the  fishermen  said: 

Amen,  Amen. 


V-UJJJQJl   JUU      I 


M500121 


